The Daily Beat: 6 April

In his galvanizing letter sent to the US state secretary, foreign minister Ilia Darchiashvili slammed the US sanctions against 4 Georgian judges, describing them as incomprehensible and unacceptable. Darchiashvili expressed hope that the State Department will provide relevant evidence or reconsider its decision, saying that otherwise, “the state of Georgia and the Georgian people perceive this as pressure on the independent court of the sovereign state and gross interference in its activities, which will damage the long-standing friendly relations between Georgia and the US.” The foreign minister also dived back into the Saakashvili-era past, censuring the US for not sanctioning Saakashvili and his high-ranking officials for gross human rights violations.

Georgian judges sanctioned by the US state department spoke out against accusations, decrying them as totally groundless, punitive, and offensive. One of the four judges, Irakli Shengelia, was particularly aggressive in his public statements, saying that his traditional Georgian family had nothing to do with a country that proudly practices gender reassignment for 6-year-olds. “I don’t care because my family doesn’t need such “values,” the same judge concluded. Another scandalous judge, Levan Murusidze, even referred to his grandfather, who apparently was not a well-traveled man but lived decently.   

In an interview with Imedi TV, shortly after the US state secretary’s announcement, the chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party Irakli Kobakhidze also lambasted the imposition of US sanctions on four Georgian judges, saying “the fact that the Secretary of State was directly smeared with such a statement is particularly worrying.” “All of us understand that Anthony Blinken doesn’t sleep and doesn’t wake up with Georgia on his mind; he still has much to do. When “they” bring such documents to him, it’s really serious,” Kobakhidze further explored his conspiracy theory. After speaking at length about attempts to politicize the Georgian judiciary, Kobakhidze also focused on a candidate status and continued attempts to open a “second front” in Georgia. He also slammed President Salome Zurabishvili and stressed the need to punish “violent protesters” of March rallies.

Georgia’s parliamentary opposition called on the president to convene an extraordinary plenary session following the US State Department’s imposition of sanctions on four Georgian judges. The opposition is calling for a vote on creating an investigative commission to address “clan rule” concerns within the country’s judiciary. The opposition stressed that any delay in responding to the issue of sanctioning judges could be detrimental to Georgia’s progress, and each member of parliament must act with due regard to their responsibility. 

In its statement, a local watchdog, Coalition for Independent and Transparent Judiciary, backed and shared the spirit of the US Sanctions.  According to the coalition statement, the governance of the “clan” has been a longstanding challenge for the Georgian justice system. The Coalition stated, “Internal challenges to the court system’s independence are one of the focal topics of the Country Report of the US Department of State.” The statement also noted that despite numerous demands, the Charles Michel Agreement, and the 12 EU conditions, the ruling party has not demonstrated the political will to reform the court system fundamentally.

On April 4-5, the 57th round of the Geneva International Discussions (GID) – a multilateral forum to address security and humanitarian consequences of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war – was held in Geneva. The meeting, which was supposed to be held in February this year, had been postponed triggering dissatisfaction and critique from the Abkhaz, Ossetian, and Russian participants, with the Abkhaz de-facto authorities refusing to host the co-chairs’ visit to Abkhazia at the beginning of February. According to the Georgian MFA, “the Georgian side focused on the need to fully implement the international obligations assumed by Russia under the six-point cease-fire agreement of August 12, 2008, and the safe and dignified return of displaced persons and refugees from the occupied territories to their homes”.