On June 22, Salome Zourabichvili, the President of Georgia, vetoed contentious changes to the Criminal Procedure Code that the Georgian Dream Parliament passed on June 7. These modifications broadened the sorts of offences and durations for which covert investigation operations are permissible. 

Zourabichvili made the announcement at the special briefing on June 22 and stated that her veto, the first she has issued since taking office in 2018, should be interpreted as her disagreement with the bill restricting human rights. The President promised to veto any controversial legislation in the next six months, despite the fact that Georgian Dream lawmakers would override her veto. This was a subtle signal that the Georgian Dream Government has a deadline to meet the requirements of the EU in order to maintain its candidate status in the 27-member bloc.

"No legislation can be enacted today that further limits human rights, since we are being urged to provide additional guarantees in this area to become more democratic and European." 

Earlier, ten Georgian civil society organisations (CSOs) asked Georgia’s President to oppose modifications to the Criminal Procedure Code adopted by Parliament on June 7 that establish new rules for defining timeframes for covert investigative actions and notifying an individual of a covert investigative action. According to CSOs, the approved measure falls well short of international human rights standards and the practise of the European Court of Human Rights. The undersigned civil society organisations encouraged President Zourabichvili to bring vetoed amendments back to the Parliament with reasoned objections, stressing that a further decline in human rights protection standards would be a severe setback for Georgia's democratic development.