Lawyers on Strike

Dozens of lawyers practicing in the field of criminal code launched a three-day strike on April 7.

The move is a protest against, what the lawyers call, turning a judiciary into “a rubber stamp” of the prosecutor’s office.

Kakha Aslanishvili, head of the Georgian Bar Association, said although the association was not an organizer of the protest, it was joining the strike.

Speaking to the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Georgian service on April 7, Aslanishvili said that not only the judiciary turned into “an automatic executor of prosecutors’ will,” attorney lawyers’ powers had also been downgraded through some legislative amendments in the criminal procedure code at the expense of prosecutors.

“But even these amendments could have been tolerable if the judiciary was independent,” he said. “The political will is needed for judiciary’s independence.”