Statement of the Coalition about Recent Developments around the Constitutional Court
The Coalition for Independent and Transparent Judiciary issues this statement in reaction to the latest developments around the Constitutional Court and the statement made by the Chair of the Court on February 19, 2016, about a deal allegedly offered by the Minister of Justice of Georgia saying that in exchange for close cooperation with the government, the Minister offered him and another judge of the Constitutional Court to extend their membership of the Venice Commission. If these allegations are true, it means that independence of the most crucial constitutional institutions in the country is put at risk and so is an independent and impartial administration of justice.
Giorgi Papuashvili’s statement about alleged deal was preceded by protest actions of certain organized groups against judges, which clearly contained signs of illegality, including manifestations outside judges’ residencies. However, the law enforcement authorities failed to take any actions in response to these violations, while the Chair of the Parliament and other political officials stated that these actions were protected under the freedom of expression.
In addition, important decisions made by the Constitutional Court about high-profile cases were accompanied by statements made by the Minister of Justice about the need to reform the Constitutional Court. We must say that the government has yet to present its own vision about concrete aspects of the reform. Clearly, the need of judicial reform and especially the Constitutional Court reform is not debatable; however, events before and after the statement was made gives rise to a reasonable suspicion that the Minister’s statement was a response of the ruling political force to the Court’s recent judgments.
We’d like to reiterate that for a meaningful independence of the judiciary, it is especially important that each and every judge is independent, feels secure, that safeguards against interference in their work are created and court’s judgments are respected. It does not rule out healthy or argumentative discussions or criticism about problems in the judiciary; however, it is important that the Court and its individual members feel protected from threatening and/or illegal activities, and the political system supports institutional empowerment of the Court and it doesn’t use the rhetoric about reforming the judiciary as a harsh response to decisions made or to be made by the Court.
In light of the foregoing, the Coalitions believes that
• senior executive and legislative officials should take the issue of the alleged communication between the Chair of the Constitutional Court and the Minister of Justice seriously;
• they should also actions in response to violations identified during protest manifestations against the judges;
• the government should present concrete views about the Constitutional Court reform, if there are any.