The drafting of internal labour rules in Georgia is attached directly to the statute, and one terminological circumstance must be cleared away at the very first step: some older sources refer to the internal rules by a different article number, whereas in the Labour Code currently in force the internal rules are codified by Article 23 — even the second part of Article 47 refers to the internal rules by that current numbering. The three pillars of this page are: Article 23 — the internal-rules norm itself; Article 47 — the condition of its enforceability; and Article 1 — the lower boundary of its content. The acknowledgement-page and disclaimer regime of United States law does not exist in the Georgian system — the enforceability of internal rules derives from their incorporation into the contract, not from a formal act of confirming awareness.
What the internal rules are and what they define
Under Article 23 of the Code the employer has the right to establish internal labour rules and is obliged to communicate them to the employees. The internal rules are a written document by which may be defined: the duration of the working week and the start and end times of work, the duration of shifts; the duration of breaks; the time, place and procedure of remuneration; the duration and granting procedure of paid and unpaid leave; rules for the protection of working conditions; the types of incentives and liability and the rules of their application; and the procedure for reviewing applications and complaints. Taking account of the specifics of the work, special rules may also be defined — the list is not closed, but every additional rule must preserve compliance with the law.
The decisive condition of enforceability
Article 47 determines the practical significance of the internal rules. Among the grounds for termination of an employment contract are the employee's gross breach of an obligation imposed by the internal rules or — against the background of a disciplinary measure already applied within the last 1 year — a repeated breach. But the second part of the same article sets a boundary for these grounds: a breach of an obligation imposed by the internal rules becomes a ground for dismissal only if the internal rules are part of the employment contract. This is the decisive drafting choice: the internal rules are either signed together with the contract or are indicated in the contract as its part — otherwise disciplinary sanctions can no longer serve as a ground for dismissal.