Georgia hosts Supreme Court members
By Tatia Megeneishvili
Tuesday, June 24
Georgia is hosting a conference of Central and Eastern European chairmen of supreme courts in Tbilisi. The conference is being attended by 13 chairpersons of supreme courts. The first day of the conference was opened on June 23 by the Chair of the Supreme Court of Georgia, Konstantine Kublashvili. It also was attended by the President of Georgia, Giorgi Margvelashvili. The conference will continue until June 25.
According to Kublashvili, Georgia’s court enjoys a high level of impartiality. However, he admitted that there are some errors as well.
“I would like these errors to be eradicated and then we will be able to state loudly that our court is independent, “stated Kublashvili.
According to Margvelashvili, a free court is one of the major guarantors for democracy in the country.
“This conference is significant in terms of court system stability. The independent court system is of the utmost significant in the context of the Association Agreement with the EU,” stated Margvelashvili.
John M. Walker, one of the co-founders of the conference, said that Georgia already has made huge progress regarding the court system.
“The Georgian Court has conducted a series of reforms to ensure transparency and other significant moves for protecting public interest,” he said.
NGOs and analysts believe that the major failure of the current government in terms of the court system was not creating a commission studying the shortcomings of the system in Georgia. The Ministry of Justice and the government members claim that the delay was temporary caused by poor financial background of the state budget.
The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, Public Defender’s Office and other organizations stress that without studying the mistakes and shortcomings and without providing justice for those affected under the previous government, undertaking genuine changes in the system would be difficult. However, all agree that the situation regarding the court is much improved compared to the previous government’s time.
