Ruling party loses constitutional majority
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Monday, February 25
The Georgian Dream ruling party has lost the constitutional majority in parliament as four of its members have left the party.
Losing the constitutional majority means that the party will now need the support of other legislators to carry out changes in the country’s main law in the constitution.
At least 113 votes are mandatory for making changes in the constitution. After Eka Beselia, Lasha Natsvlishvili, Gedevan Popkhadze and Levan Gogichaishvili quit the ruling party which now has 111 MPs in the 150-member legislative body.
Beselia, Popkhadze and Gogichaishvili left the party amid the court-related dispute, as the ruling party did not vote for the bill drafted by them which proposed the postponement of the lifetime appointment of judges until 2025.
The three lawmakers believe that the Georgian Dream had betrayed its values and gave chances to those judges who used to deliver biased verdicts with the indication of the United National Movement leadership.
It is being speculated that more members will leave the party.
Beselia claims that she will wait for the decision of several of her colleagues, who share her position regarding the court system, and will create a new political platform to fight for genuine changes in the judiciary.
Natsvlishvili quit the party as GD did not support his alternative bill on the accumulative pension.
The Georgian Dream ruling party member Mamuka Mdinaradze stated that when the situation calms down “everyone will see that Beselia made a wrong decision.”
Vice Parliament Speaker Tamar Chugoshvili says that “losing the constitutional majority is not a tragedy at all.”
The GD believes that the bill proposed by Beselia and eight other MPs contradicted the constitution and would create problems for the court system with the decreased number of judges.
The GD has asked the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission to help the country draft a bill regarding the selection and appointment procedures of judges.
The turmoil around the court started in December 2018, when the High Council of Justice, an independent body which is responsible for the selection and appointment of judges, presented the list of ten lifetime judges for the Supreme Court without any previous consultations with interested parties.
The list was grilled by the civil sector, non-judge members of the High Council and several representatives of the ruling party, as the list included several judges with “biased judiciary.”
Following the large-scale criticism, parliament made a decision to postpone discussions about the list, as the judges for the Supreme Court must be approved by parliament.
The GD vowed that before the appointment of judges in the first and second instances of courts a clear criterion would be elaborated regarding the selection and appointment of judges.
