Stand up for Human Rights Today! The entire world is celebrating the International Human Rights Day with this slogan this year. Reception in relation with the global event has been hosted by H.E. Giorgi Kvirikashvili, Prime Minister of Georgia in Tbilisi on behalf of the Government of Georgia (GOG).
Head of the Government of Georgia welcomed the event participants at the reception and shared information with them on the efforts made by the Government of Georgia towards the protection of human rights. Prime Minister of Georgia believes that a human being is core to democratic statehood and human rights are the greatest achievement of the modern world.
"When our Government, our political team, talks about a human being and human rights, we are not trying to be fancy in the eyes of the international community. Protection of human rights and creation of institutional foundation to this end are the most important priorities of our political agenda. Progress and development of a country is impossible without such, very significant reforms. Therefore, this is our ground foundation and we prove this with our actions. Democratic, European state has been a dream of generations, but today we have an opportunity to align Georgia with modern European, democratic states. Today we have a National Strategy and Government Action Plan on Human Rights. Our team, our Government, our political team in the Parliament can implement them and can remain genuinely committed to democratic values. We have a solid political will. We have had a major breakthrough in Georgia in 2012 towards this end and a lot has been done towards this end to make us proud for the past 4 years" noted the Prime Minister of Georgia.
According to the Head of the Government of Georgia, comprehensive approaches deployed by the authorities in the past four years, policy documents and institutional mechanisms have been praised in different formats of the United Nations (UN), which is a great international recognition.
"Georgia acceded to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2015, while Mr. Shalva Tsiskarashvili, Head of Georgian Mission in Geneva was elected as a Vice President of the Council last week. We are proud of this achievement, however we do not get content and intensively pursue our efforts further. We have a solid political will to protect the human rights, by thereby improving the legal framework and institutional mechanisms in the area concerned. We will be resuming a review of the Third Wave of the Judiciary Reform at the Parliament of Georgia. I believe that our key goal is to reach a milestone achievement within this initiative. We need to make sure that a very solid public perception manifests itself on the protection of human rights in Georgia, on having solid institutional mechanisms and operation of the judiciary system with standards that are deployed in the modern world. Engagement of the NGO sector is very important for this. Hence, we shall do our best to establish relevant platforms of public dialogue to ensure the engagement of all the stakeholders, including the NGOs, in this most needed reform implementation. Support and engagement of our international partners in the decision-making process is equally important at every level of the initiative" added the Prime Minister of Georgia.
Head of the Government of Georgia expressed his gratitude to everyone working on human rights, rule of law and democracy in the country.
Reception dedicated to the International Human Rights Day organized by the Government of Georgia was attended by the diplomatic corps, Government officials, Members of Parliament (MPs), international community and NGOs. Supporters of the event were the European Union (EU) and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) within a EU funded project titled as Human Rights for All.