Three Georgian Candidates Presented to Strasbourg Court Rejected

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg has rejected all three candidates for the position of Georgia’s representative as presented by the Georgian government.

The Strasbourg Court was to choose one person from the presented three, Eva Gotsiridze, Alexander Baramidze or Giorgi Badashivili, for the position of Georgia’s representative to the ECHR, but the Court rejected all three candidates and asked the government to relaunch selection procedures.

Mamuka Zhgenti, Georgia's former Ambassador to the Council of Europe, reports that the candidates were supported by only one person in the EHCR Committee; five voted against and two abstained.

The three candidates from Georgia had interviews at Strasbourg Court on September 29-30, 2016, however, the voting process was delayed until January 2017.

The ruling party Georgian Dream (GD) says that the decision of the ECHR is not “a failure of the government” and new candidates will be presented for the post.

However, the opposition believes this is an embarrassment for Georgia and are calling out the candidates for their “incompetence”.

Nino Kalandadze, member of the opposition United National Movement, says that this is the first precedent that all presented candidates were rejected at the ECHR.

“This is definitely a sign of alarm, and it means that our government should more carefully make decisions when it comes to judicial independence and selection of judges,” Kalandadze said.

Member of the parliamentary minority, European Georgia, Giorgi Kandelaki says the ECHR asked the Government of Georgia to send “more suitable” candidates next time.

“The GD government once again brought shame on itself by sending to Strasbourg totally inappropriate candidates,” he said.

Ana Dolidze, the Parliamentary Secretary of the President, also expressed concern over the issue.

“It is very sad that we are on the list of countries which do not comply with Council of Europe standards and that the list provided by the government was rejected,” she said.

Eka Beselia, Chair of the Parliamentary Legal Committee, confirmed the majority of the selection committee members of the ECHR had decided that the Government of Georgia should select its candidates again. She denied the veracity of information released by the opposition, claiming it to be no more than speculation.

“The ECHR said the Georgian government should undertake the candidate selection procedure again and a new list presented to the Court by April,” Beselia said.

Zaza Khatiashvili, Chairman of Lawyers’ Association, claims that the candidates were rejected after he met with representatives of European Court and provided them with information about the candidates.

“I predicted the ECHR would not approve of the list presented by the Minister of Justice, as there are a lot of questions surrounding the three,” said Khatiashvili.

Thea Morrison