Parliament endorsed on October 4 a decision to establish within a month state commission to develop major constitutional changes before September 1, 2014.

Commission will be chaired by parliament speaker Davit Usupashvili, who has to table rules and procedures for commission’s work and decision-making process, as well as its composition within a month.
 
The commission will unite 20 lawmakers; one representative from each non-parliamentary party, which are eligible to state funding; as well as one representative from each political party, which do not have state funding but whose candidate garners at least 3% of votes during the October 27 presidential election.

The commission will also include: chairmen of the constitutional and supreme courts; speaker of legislative body of Adjara and chairman of Tbilisi-based Abkhaz legislative body; public defender; justice minister; president’s and government’s parliamentary secretaries; chairman of the Georgian Bar Association; as well as 20 representatives from civil society and academic circles.

The last time when a state commission on constitutional reform was established was in 2009; that commission developed a model, which was approved by the previous Parliament in October 2010 and it will go into effect after the new president, elected in October 27 election, takes office.