Eight prosecutors tasked to select Chief Prosecutor elected
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Friday, October 23
The first Conference of Prosecutors in Georgia has elected eight members of the 15-member Prosecutorial Council, one of the key circles for selecting Georgia’s Chief Prosecutor in the future.
The Conference that gathered in Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi for the last two days consisted of 400 Georgian prosecutors nationwide, and was united in 12 different initiative groups.
The groups named their favourite candidates for the Council, with all the prosecutors then participating in a closed voting procedure in order to reveal eight most popular nominees.
Based on the final outcome the eight most voted prosecutors were: Mamuka Pipia, Anzor Ustiadze, Giga Dzneladze, Natia Songhulashvili, Gocha Parulava, Konstantine Siradze, Ana Kalandadze and Giorgi Gaboidze.
Georgia’s current Chief Prosecutor, Giorgi Badashvili, dubbed the elections an “historical event”.
Badashvili added that the recently-elaborated procedures for electing the country’s top prosecutor signified a “new stage in the Georgia’s prosecutorial history”.
On September 18 of this year, Georgia’s Parliament passed a bill at its final reading that introduced new, more complex rules of how to select and elect a Chief Prosecutor for a non-renewable six-year term.
The bill outlined the creation of a 15-member Prosecutorial Council, chaired by the Minister of Justice.
Apart from the recently-selected eight prosecutors, members of Parliament (MPs) will take two seats - one from the majority and one from the opposition - while one seat will be held by a civil society representative ,with the other being held by an academic. Two seats would also be held by judges of the High Council of Justice.
For the final position, the new procedures mean that the Minister of Justice would select three candidates and then present them to the Prosecutorial Council for approval. The Council must approve one candidate by a vote; the successful nominee must gain two thirds of support.
If this fails, the Justice Minister will be required to name three other candidates. However, if selected, the chosen candidate will go before the Government for approval. If the candidate is not approved, the process of selecting nominees will begin again. If endorsed, the candidate must be fully approved by Parliament which should confirm the candidate before the latter is officially appointed to the role of Chief Prosecutor of Georgia.
