Hearing of the Supreme Court Judge Candidates continues at the High Council of Justice
By Inga Kakulia
Tuesday, July 30
The hearings are being observed by the representative from ODIHR, international and non-governmental organizations as well as Public defender’s office.
But it is not yet clear when the result of these hearing will become public and when the chosen candidates will be appointed.
When speaking with the journalists, The vice-speaker of the Parliament, Tamara Chugoshvili, said that it is not yet clear how long will it take the Council to finish the hearings of candidates, to vote and to deliver the results to the Parliament. “It’s impossible to know how many candidates will receive a sufficient amount of votes, which is 76. Only a part of the candidates may have the necessary support. Our approach is only to appoint the candidates that have the maximum support from the Council and manage to convince the Parliament that they are the best choice. I don’t rule out the possibility that not all seats will be filled,” said Chugoshvili.
According to the vice-speaker the Parliament will need some time to collect information independently of the candidates, and the Legal Issues Committee will do so. As soon as the preparatory work of the committee is completed, the plenary session will be ready to conduct the voting process. Since the autumn session is predicted to be very busy, the discussion of the appointment of judges might be held in September or in October.
The possibility of temporarily suspending the hearings is also being considered. The process of interviewing the candidates for the Supreme Court Judges might stop at some point and continue in September, according to Dimitri Gvritishvili, a chair of the council.
Dimitri Gvritishvili stated that the reason is the vacation period. According to him, at this stage, the board members have not made a final decision on this topic just yet. Gvitashvili responded to the comments made by Nazi Janeishvili, The nonjudge member of the council, alluding that the council is being inconsiderate towards the candidates for conducting these interviews during the vacation period. “Unlike the allegations that we do not care about the candidates, observers and council staff, we are considering everyone’s situation, and we may make the decision to suspend the interviews for some time since a vacation is also a constitutional right,” said Gvritashvili.
But according to Janeishvili, the interviews are being conducted under a very tense environment. “They periodically try to demonstrate that the interviews are going on smoothly and quietly, they try to let me ask questions, but as soon as the question concerns an uncomfortable topic or it might not leave a positive impression on the competence of the candidate, members of the Justice Council get involved. Dimitri Gvritishvili, who is an illegitimate chairperson of the High Council of Justice, cannot guarantee the order during these interviews and allows the remarks and statements of the members of the Council that do not correspond to the process. Such kind of involvement is irrelevant to the interviews,” said Janezashvili.
Janezashvili brought up an example of an interview with one of the candidates, Merab Lomidze, who has previously worked as an assistant to Mikheil Chinchladze, The Chair of the Court. “I was wondering what impact has Mikheil Chinchaladze had on Lomidze’s career. Whether or not Chinchaladze gave Lomidze a recommendation when he became a judge. However, I received very general answers about this. Also, I have received very general answers regarding a lot of topics. Therefore, I was posing questions that were asking for more accuracy. Apparently, it causes other associations to council members. I can not understand why,” said Janezashvili.
The anonymous ballot was voted on June 25th, as a part of the next stage of the selection of candidates to be nominated to the Parliament for the post of judge of the Supreme Court of Georgia. 137 candidates were included in the ballot paper, of which 50 candidates were transferred to the next stage of the selection.
Dimitri Gvritishvili, a member of the council, was headed by the High Council of Justice. The secretary of the High Council of Justice Giorgi Mikautadze did not participate in the process.