Venice Commission publishes report on appointment of judges to Georgian Supreme Court
Georgian Parliaments Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze asked the Venice Commission to make a report on the selection and appointment of judges for the Georgian Supreme Court.Photo: Venice Commission press office.
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The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe has released an evaluation of a bill put forward by ruling Georgian Dream party MPs concerning the long-disputed issue of the lifetime appointment of judges to the Supreme Court of Georgia.
The report was made in an urgent manner by the commission after the appeal of Georgian Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze, who is one of the authors of the bill.
Georgia requested the help after the controversial nomination of 10 judges for the Supreme Court by the High Council of Justice, an independent body responsible for the selection and appointments of judges, back in December.
NGOs, two members of the High Council of Justice and several MPs from the ruling party stated that the list included “biased judges.”
Several of the Georgian Dream members quit the party as they had differing views regarding the issue.
This request for an urgent opinion was made as a result of the incomplete composition of the Supreme Court of Georgia, which currently has 11 judges [and will have only eight judges by the beginning of July 2019] and should be composed of 28 judges according to the new constitution of Georgia,” the report by the Venice Commission reads.
Georgian Parliament Speaker says that the report is positive. Photo: Parliament press office.
The report says that since the new constitution leaves the final decision of the appointment of judges of the Supreme Court to parliament [after the candidates are presented by the High Council of Justice], this implies that the present parliamentary majority will be entrusted with the appointment of a practically new Supreme Court, the composition of which will possibly remain the same for the next 20 to 30 years.
The report also says that the High Council of Justice “enjoys fairly low trust by a large segment of society,” and the fact that the candidates for the Supreme Court will be nominated by the body “should be a matter of concern.”
The key recommendations are:
- A higher age requirement and more emphasis on a candidate’s experience as well as judgment, independence and diversity should be provided in the eligibility criteria.
- The requirement for non-judge candidates to have passed the judicial qualification examination should be reconsidered because, as indicated [in the bill], only “specialist of distinguished qualification in the field of law” may be non-judge candidates for the Supreme Court. Persons with such qualifications should not be forced to sit an examination to prove that they are capable of dealing with points of law, which is the essence of the work of a Supreme Court.
- Conducting secret ballots in the High Judicial Council should be abolished; information regarding the qualifications of candidates should be made public and the procedure should be based on the objective criteria on which each candidate is evaluated, producing a pool of candidates who satisfy these criteria.
- A member of the High Council of Justice, who is a candidate for judges of the Supreme Court, should be excluded from all procedures pertaining to the selection and nomination of these candidates.
- See the full report here.
Georgian Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze stated that “as expected” the report is mainly positive regarding the bill.
He said that those recommendations, which are related to the legal issues and do not contradict the state constitution, “will still be definitely taken into account.”
A member of the United National Movement opposition Salome Samadashvili has stated that the report is “obviously negative” and pointed at the sections about the appointment of judges by the current parliament and cited sentences about the High Council of Justice.
Georgian Justice Minister Thea Tsulukiani says that a bill drafted by Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze and six other ruling party MPs fully meets the recommendations of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe.
Levan Gogichaishvili has quit the Georgian Dream (GD) ruling party today after the party members refused or refrained from supporting the bill regarding the court proposed by him and eight other legislators of the ruling party.
The Georgian Dream ruling party has asked the Council of Europe Venice Commission to get involved in the drafting of a bill which will set criteria for the selection and the appointment of Georgian judges.
Ten judges who have been nominated by the High Council of Justice for the Supreme Court of Georgia have triggered controversies and criticism in the public and civil sector, as several of the judges “are affiliated with the United National Movement government and biased judiciary”, several members of the HCJ and NGOs say.
Ruling Georgian Dream party member Archil Talakvadze says that two of the Venice Commission recommendations regarding the bill on the selection and appointment procedures of the Georgian Supreme Court judges have already been taken into account and the related sections in the bill have been amended.
MP Levan Koberidze left the Georgian Dream ruling party after the parliament approved the bill on the selection and appointment of Supreme Court judges with its third and final reading earlier today. Koberidze said that the bill drafted by the ruling party MPs fails to ensure transparency in the selection and appointment procedures of judges.
The High Council of Justice of Georgia, a body which is responsible for the selection and appointment of judges in the country, has presented a final, 20 person list, for judges to the Supreme Court, including Chief Prosecutor Shalva Tadumadze and his deputy Mamuka Vasadze.
Georgian Parliament Speaker Archil Talakvadze said legislators will vote on the candidacy of the Supreme Court judges in a transparent manner in line with democratic standards. He said the candidates will be asked “all the important questions” and only afterwards will MPs make a decision whether or not to approve the list.
The co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for the monitoring of Georgia welcome steps aimed to make the process of selecting Supreme Court judges more transparent. At the same time, they express “serious concern” at the manner in which the High Council of Justice prepared the list of candidates for parliament.
The Georgian Public Defender’s office has appealed to the Constitutional Court to declare the rule on the selection of Supreme Court judges unlawful as the current regulation “violates the right of a Georgian citizen to hold public office, to have access to a fair trial and it violates the principle of an independent and impartial trial.”
The co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for the monitoring of Georgia have expressed their “regret and disappointment” over the recent appointment of 14 Supreme Court judges.
Georgian Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani said the parliament of Georgia has approved of the new Supreme Court judges and every European should respect the decision of the independent country’s legislators.