Strasbourg Court Rejects Two Georgian Candidates, Again

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

Georgia presented to European Court three candidates: Lado Chanturia, Sophio Japaridze and Shota Getsadze, who were selected by a 13-member special commission headed by Georgia’s Justice Minister, Thea Tsulukiani.

The ECHR experts assessed that only Lado Chanturia was eligible for the position, and said that the other two candidates, aged 35 and 36 were too young and did not have enough experience for this position.

On Tuesday Tsulukiani announced that the new selection process has been launched to choose two new candidates and called on the Georgian lawyers to take part in the contest.

She added the contest will be underway until August 25.

This is the third contest announced by the ministry for this position since autumn 2016, as the ECHR has rejected candidates from Georgia two times already.

Tsulukiani explained that the reason that Japaridze and Getsadze were rejected by the European Court was only their age and not competence.

The minister hopes that in autumn the ECHR will approve new candidates and will chose the best from them for the post of Strasburg Court judge from Georgia.

By Thea Morrison