General Prosecutor on the list of potential Supreme Court Judges
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Monday, June 3
The applications for the vacancy of the Supreme Court judge have been completed. The applications were received electronically from May 11 to May 31.
144 persons have applied in the selection procedure to be nominated to the Parliament of Georgia for the position of a judge of the Supreme Court of Georgia. Among them are the Secretary of the High Council of Justice, Giorgi Mikautadze, General Prosecutor Shalva Tadumadze and the judge of the Constitutional Court Zaza Tavadze. Due to the public pressure, Mikheil Chinchaladze and Dimitri Gvritishvili did not submit their statements to the board. The Council of Justice declared the competition on the vacancy of the Supreme Court judge on May 11, after the end of 2018 was followed by a list of candidates nominated for approval by the NGOs and politicians.
Under the new edition of the constitution, the Supreme Court must be composed of 28 judges and must be nominated by the Council of Justice. After certain procedures, the selection process of judges will move to the Parliament and the legislators decide whether or not the candidate will be the judge of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court of Georgia is the court of cassation, higher and final instance of justice in the whole country. However, in addition to the fact that the process is important in the institutional sense, as it concerns the composition of one of the mainstream government branches of the state, it has a serious political component.
As for the procedures, the next step is the examination of documents, which will be investigated for five days. After selecting candidates from 144 total, open interviews will be held and the board will submit a list of candidates to the Parliament.
The reactions regarding the list that was published on June 1 were diverse. PM Mamuka commented that any person would be selected transparently according to the highest standards and procedures for the post of judge of the Supreme Court.
In connection with the presence of General Prosecutor Shalva Tadumadze in the list of candidates for the list of supreme judges, Bakhtadze replied that the main thing for him is that:
"The Parliament of Georgia has received objective criteria and procedures in consultation with which the selection of judges will be based, and it is based on the best European practice."
According to the Prime Minister, any person has the right to participate in the competition.
On the other hand, member of the Parliament, Eka Beselia found the candidacies of Tadumadze and Tavadze (chairman of the constitutional court) unexpected: "With my resignation from the chairmanship of the legal committee, I was able to stop "the 10-man" list. The two surnames, Gvritishvili and Chinchaladze, are no longer on the list; it is a big obstacle. In the new list, we see a lot of unacceptable surnames, including the names of judges related to illegal and political decisions in the past. I do not know whom the Council of Justice will finally submit to the Parliament, but the names who cannot stand the criticism and some of them are directly related to political decisions and repressions in the country, of course, we will have very strong resistance. I'm not going to stop fighting. On the contrary, I am going to resist the intention that the "clan" wants to seize the court. Everything should be done to make the Supreme Court a high reputation, high credibility, professional and morally reliable judges" – said Eka Beselia.
Must be noted, that the process of selecting Supreme Court Judges has been an issue for a long time, and it's the most important aspect of ongoing political discourse in Georgia. The Venice Commission's conclusion that was published in April 2019 included basic and additional recommendations regarding this subject – out of 5 basic recommendations, three were fully met in the new law, and one was met partly.
We can expect the political temperature to rise again since the debates will be resumed in the Parliament after the MPs approve the nominated judges.
