Georgia to chair European Constitutional Court Conference

Authorities meeting in Austria announced Georgia’s Constitutional Court will chair the Conference of European Constitutional Courts for the next three years.

The news, announced today will mean all high level meetings related to the Conference’s work during 2014 to 2017 will be held in Batumi, the coastal city on the Black Sea, where Georgia’s Constitutional Court is located.

The appointment of Georgia to host the conference for the next three years is monumental. Georgia is the only non-European Union member country to be elected to this role in 20 years.

For the past three years (from 2011 to 2014), the Conference was chaired by Austria. The chairmanship was given to Georgia this year with 39 votes in favour and one against. The only country that voted against Georgia to be chair state was Russia.

This decision was made today in Vienna, Austria, where the three-day XVI Congress of the Conference is taking place.

Georgia was elected to the role of chair state and the president of Georgia’s Constitutional Court, Giorgi Papuashvili, was named as the person to chair the Conference of the European Constitutional Courts.

The Conference of European Constitutional Courts was established in Dubrovnik in 1972 and brings together representatives of 40 European constitutional or equivalent courts conducting a constitutional review.