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High Council of Justice denies Court did not uphold 99% of parties' claims

By Natalia Kochiashvili
Friday, November 13
The High Council of Justice of Georgia stated that the Court satisfied more than 16 % of lawsuits filed by several opposition party members and NGOs, requesting the revision of polling station results, and subjected 17 polling stations to recount. Results of voting in one of the polling stations were annulled, the High Council of Justice claims.

"We would like to respond to the statement of some politicians who said the common courts of Georgia did not satisfy 99 % of the lawsuits filed in the revision of the results of the 2020 parliamentary elections”. According to the council, the presented statistics "make it clear that this statement is a lie and serves to mislead the public." The Council stated that a total of 96 lawsuits have been filed in the common courts of Georgia. Of these, 60 lawsuits sought annulment or recount of voting results in various polling stations."

According to the Council, the rest of the lawsuits (more than 37% of the total number of lawsuits) concerned the legality of leaving the complaints submitted by unauthorized subjects to the District Election Commission unconsidered.

Insofar as Article 42, Article 78, Paragraphs 20 and 21 of the Organic Law of Georgia on the Organic Law of Georgia confirmed the fact of filing complaints by unauthorized persons, the possibility of the court reviewing and evaluating the substantive part of the request was excluded.

"We call on all stakeholders in the election results to release only information on the settlement of election disputes based on real data of cases in the Court," the statement said.

This statement of the High Council of Justice coincided with the statement of the Georgian Young Lawyers' Association. The organization says that out of their 38 lawsuits seeking recounts, only 12 were upheld.

According to the current data of the CEC, 9 parties are overcoming the 1% threshold in the October 31 elections, and eight parties refuse to enter the Parliament.

Opposition parties have called for the election to be rigged, saying their complaints and lawsuits have not been resolved in district commissions and courts.