DECREE ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENT OF GEORGIA on Expanding the Mandate of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia

As the Referendum held on 23 November 1996 among the refugee and internally displaced persons from the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia demonstrated, these people unambiguously and unanimously condemned the so called elections, organized in the same day as Referendum by the Abkhaz separatist regime, while the Parliament of Georgia, acting on the basis of the Constitution of Georgia and norms of international law, declared the results of these elections as illegal and null and void. Bearing in mind the fact that currently substantial part of the territory of Abkhazia under occupation and it is impossible to hold in the Autonomous Republic free elections,

The Parliament of Georgia decrees:

To expand the mandate of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Georgia until factual restoration of the jurisdiction of Georgia in the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia.

Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia Zurab Zhvania

25 December 1996

(Bulletin of the Parliament of Georgia, Tbilisi, 1997, # # 1-2 (33-34/7), p. 2)