President’s Parliamentary Secretary criticizes High Council of Justice

The President’s Parliamentary Secretary, Georgia’s ex-Deputy Defence Minister Anna Dolidze, claims the country’s justice system requires “fundamental reform”, as otherwise the system might lose the public's trust.

Dolidze made her remarks on July 6 following her meeting with Georgia’s civil sector representatives at the President's Administration office in Avlabari.

The President’s Parliamentary Secretary especially criticised Georgia’s High Council of Justice, the judiciary body responsible for appointing judges, assessing their qualifications, specifying salaries for courts’ staff and similar matters.

“The Council has a range of drawbacks, starting from technical shortcomings to bad management,” Dolidze said, and stressed the importance of continuing the judicial reform launched under the current Government of Georgia.

Dolidze highlighted Parliament’s role in the fast-adoption of relevant changes.

The head of Georgia’s Young Lawyers’ Association Anna Natsvlishvili shared Dolidze’s view about the High Council of Justice and said the body failed to appoint high-quality court staff.

She stressed that justice reform was not just an ordinary reform, but “state-important reform.”

Georgia has been independent for 25 years and during this time the country has faced a range of complications, a civil war, various matters of civil unrest and political strife.

The previous state leadership pushed the country’s European development forward, but several years after coming to power they started establishing a police regime.

Almost all non-governmental organisations stated the courts became a victim of the previous state leadership and that judges were forced to issue verdicts that were in the interests of the United National Movement (UNM) government.

When coming to power in 2012, the Georgian Dream government decided to carry out justice reforms but without dismissing incumbent judges.

Now there are many judges in the current justice system who served the previous regime, including some in senior positions.

If the country fails to cleanse the judicial system, there will always be question marks over the courts' verdicts.