The Legal Foundation of an Advocacy Organization
An organization carrying human-rights or advocacy purposes is created in Georgia in the form of a non-entrepreneurial (non-commercial) legal entity. Article 24 of the Civil Code defines a legal entity as an organized formation created to achieve a defined purpose, possessing its own property, independently liable with that property, acquiring rights and duties in its own name, entering into transactions and capable of appearing in court as plaintiff and defendant. A legal entity may be corporatively organized, based on membership, dependent on or independent of the status of its members. A legal entity whose purpose is non-commercial activity must be registered in the manner established by the Civil Code, and it is precisely this route that forms the legal framework for founding an advocacy organization. The non-commercial form fits the task exactly: it allows a group to act lawfully in defence of the public interest, to acquire property, to conclude contracts and to defend in court both its own interests and, for the purpose of protecting rights, the interests of the persons who apply to it.