Debate continues surrounding judges’ probation period

Accepting a three-year probationary period for newly recruited judges, before their appointment for life, threatens the independence of the judiciary, believes Supreme Court Chairman Kote Kublashvili.

The Georgian official made the following announcement at an international conference held in Tbilisi, dedicated to judges’ issues including the lifetime appointment of judges, issues of probation as well as monitoring and evaluation.

"The court system’s approach to this issue is known – at the end of December 2013 all judges on the Judge Conference supported the statement which read that the probationary period pose a direct threat to the judicial independence.  We will express our opinion on this conference as well,” Kubalshvili said today.

He also noted the Government should have taken this into account in the first place.

"Maybe particular judges will not be affected [by the probationary period] but it is a huge threat as some might become controlled. To add such dangerous provisions to the legislation creates basis of the threat from the beginning and directly opposes the independence principle,” he added.

Minister of Justice Tea Tsulukiani expressed a different opinion. She believed the new initiative implicated establishment of a system of evaluation. She said the judges, who would work well for three years would be appointed for life and those who gained negative evaluations would not. 

"This system operates in other countries. We invited judges from those seven countries, where the evaluation system works, to share their experiences. We invited those judges, who have already been evaluated and evaluate others to tell us how to make this work, so that the Georgian judges, yes, should be evaluated until they will be appointed for lifetime and decide people’s fate.”

The international conference was opened today at the Hotel Sheraton Metekhi Palace in Tbilisi.

The event was attended by representative of non-governmental and international organisations, accredited agencies and representatives of the British Embassy.

Judges from Poland, Germany, Britain, Austria, Croatia and USA participated in the conference, which was opened by the Georgia’s Minister of Justice.