This is a news from GAC, the Georgian accreditation body and EA Member.

With the initiative of the Georgian Accreditation Centre (GAC) the seminar for the judges was organised in Georgia regarding the EU and International systems of Accreditation. High representatives from the EU member countries and international levels were invited as speakers for the seminar. The chair of the IAF Mr. Emanuele Riva, Stephan Finke – CEO of DAkkS (German National Accreditation Body), Mr. Filippo Trifiletti – General director of ACCREDIA (Italian NAB) and invited expert Dr. Mr. Thomas Facklam with the top management of the GAC delivered three days’ seminar for the judges of the administrative proceedings.

Since 2014, EU-Georgia Association Agreement (AA) and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) foresees the Georgia’s commitment to approximate its legislation with the respective EU law. The list of the EU regulations and directives includes horizontal and sectoral EU acquis including EU Regulations (EC) No 765/2008 and No 768/2008/EC.

In parallel to the development of the accreditation system in Georgia according to EU Regulation (EC) No 765/2008, GAC has already grappled with a number of court proceedings about the accreditation and the principles of the accreditation.  Also, because of the fact that transposition of the relevant EU legislation will continue, more cases are expected in the future. Based on the GAC’s experience and lessons learned, it seems that judges involved in the administrative proceedings require additional information about the accreditation, in particular the EU system and practices. At this point, it is worth noting that, a number of Georgian court decisions and judgments have been issued not fully in line with the requirements and the principles derived from Regulation (EC) No 765/2008.

In order to respond above mentioned challenges on 1-3 April 2022 in the framework of the EU funded twinning project in cooperation with the Facility for the Implementation of the EU-Georgia Association Agreement in Georgia – II and GAC, the seminar on European Accreditation System, awareness Raising for Judges was organized in Georgia.

The participants of the seminar were the judges of Georgia, representatives of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, representatives of the Georgian Accreditation Center and High school of Justice.

During the seminar with the challenging discussion were also introduced accreditation systems existing in the EU and globally, as well as were provided overview of the general principles on Georgian Accreditation rules and procedures, EU legal frameworks on accreditation and real case studies regarding the topic prepared by DAkkS and ACCREDIA.

Speakers of the seminar underlined the importance of such events in order to facilitate proper enforcement of the National Accreditation Body’s decisions.