Former Prosecutor General Shotadze runs again for post
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Former Georgian Prosecutor General Irakli Shotadze, who resigned in 2018, has been registered to run for the post again after former Chief Prosecutor Shalva Tadumadze was approved as a lifetime judge of the Georgian Supreme Court in December 2019.
Shotadze, who was the first Georgian prosecutor general elected by parliament in 2015, has been nominated for the post by a legal entity, the Georgian Technical University.
Candidates for the Georgian Prosecutor General will be registered until January 18, 2020 and the final nominee will be voted in parliament after going through various procedures.
As of now 9 candidates have been registered.
The post became vacant after the approval of Shalva Tadumadze as the judge of the Georgian Supreme Court. Photo: netgazeti.
Shotadze resigned on May 31, 2018, after Tbilisi City Court delivered its verdict on the high profile murder case of two teenage boys in central Tbilisi in December 2017.
- Amendments to the Georgian law introduced in September 2015 meant a Prosecutor General had to meet various criteria to be elected to the post.
- Firstly, the Georgian justice minister must select three candidates after consulting with non-governmental and academic field representatives.
- Then the three candidates needed to be presented before the special Prosecutorial Council, chaired by Georgian Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani.
- The council is composed of 14 members – prosecutors, MPs, judges, civil and academic field representatives.
- The council selects one candidate, who would then need to be confirmed by the government, and parliament.
The Georgian parliament has approved 14 of total 19 candidates for lifelong judges of the Georgian Supreme Court amid protests of the opposition and civic groups. Prosecutor General Shalva Tadumadze, his deputy Mamuka Vasadze and Secretary of Georgia’s High Council of Justice Giorgi Mikautadze are among those approved.
The process of separating the government and the Prosecutors’ Office, which started back in 2013, has finally come to an end.
The Georgian Chief Prosecutor Irakli Shotadze has resigned in the wake of the Tbilisi City Court verdict on the high profile murder case of two teenage boys in central Tbilisi in December last year. In a special statement released on the official page of the Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office, Shotadze stated that his body has taken all measures to establish the truth on the case.
Georgia has elected its first Chief Prosecutor. Today Parliament of Georgia approved a current high official employed in the Chief Prosecutor’s Office as the new Chief Prosecutor of Georgia.
Ruling party MPs Mamuka Mdinaradze and Giorgi Volski have promised to vote again for Irakli Shotadze, “a professional and a worthy man,” if he is selected as the country’s prosecutor general by the Prosecutorial Council in the coming months. Zaza Saralidze, father of deceased minor David Saralidze, whose son’s case became the reason for Shotadze’s resignation, says that Shotadze’s “return to the battlefield will be dignified.”
The Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC), an organisation working on human rights issues, calls on Prosecutorial Council not to select former Prosecutor General Irakli Shotadze’s candidacy back for the top position.
Former Georgian Prosecutor General Irakli Shotadze, who resigned in 2018, has been selected among four shortlisted candidates for the same post by the Prosecutorial Council earlier today. Now the council will present Shotadze in parliament for a vote.
Former Georgian Prosecutor General Irakli Shotadze, who resigned in 2018, might take the post again as he is among the four candidates who were advanced through the selection process by the Prosecutorial Council earlier today.
The atmosphere around the Georgian parliament building earlier today was tense after civic activists were refused by police to enter the legislative body and attend the hearing of former Prosecutor General Irakli Shotadze, who has been nominated for the post again, at Parliament's Legal Issues’ Committee later today. Civic activists say that Shotadze does not deserve the post and his re-proposal was the “personal decision” of the founder of the Georgian Dream ruling party Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Members of opposition parties and their supporters are now holding a rally by the parliament building in central Tbilisi, protesting Irakli Shotadze’s possible re-election as prosecutor general.
The Georgian Prosecutor General’s Office on Tuesday presented its nine-month report covering the body’s efforts including work against corruption, domestic violence and “criminal underworld”, as well as a vision and action plan to further increase its “institutional and organisational” effectiveness.
The Prosecutorial Council, a 15-member independent body in charge of selecting candidates for the position of the country’s Prosecutor General, on Thursday elected Shota Tkeshelashvili, its member and the Deputy Prosecutor of Tbilisi, as its new chief.