Opposition party sues parliament for dismissal of MP

The United National Movement opposition party has appealed the December 12 decision of the Georgian parliament to the Constitutional Court on dismissal of its MP Nika Melia. 

The party says that the decision will also be appealed to the Court of Appeals.

The dismissal of Melia was unlawful, a political persecution and an unprecedented decision,” the party MP Roman Gotsiridze has stated earlier today. 

Melia was dismissed following a recent verdict of a court in the high profile Cartu Bank case.

The case, dating back to 2012, concerns “the plans of the UNM government to deliberately bankrupt the bank founded by Ivanishvili and hamper his political intentions,” the Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office says.

The ruling party has dismissed political grounds in Melia's case. Photo: parliament of Georgia press office. 

88 MPs in the 150-member parliament voted for the decision on December 12 which immediately came into effect. 

The opposition boycotted the vote.

• On December 2 former Prosecutor General of Georgia Zurab Adeishvili was sentenced to five years and three months in prison in absentia, while Melia was banned from taking public office for two years and three months in the case of Cartu Bank, involving the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party Bidzina Ivanishvili.
• Melia will also have to pay a 25,000 GEL [8,389 USD] fine for his role in the case as the former head of the State Enforcement Bureau back in 2012, when Ivanishvili announced his political plans to defeat the nine-year-governance of the UNM.
• Melia is now on bail “for incitement to violence” during the June protests in Tbilisi.