Presidential Representatives: Constitutional Court Ruling is Political

On October 16, Tamar Chugoshvili and Maia Kopaleishvili who represented President Zurabishvili in the impeachment proceedings before the Constitutional Court, said at the press-conference dedicated to the Constitutional court decision that the verdict was political. Earlier today the Court announced its decision that the President had violated the Constitution by paying working visits to Europe without the Government’s consent.

• 16/10/2023 – Constitutional Court Rules President’s Foreign Visits Unconstitutional

According to Tamar Chugoshvili, the Parliament failed to provide evidence that would prove the president guilty of obstructing Georgia’s EU integration process, but the Constitutional Court still sided with the ruling Georgian Dream party.

“We really wanted the process to remain within the legal framework, but unfortunately the court still decided to take a political side,” Chugoshvili added.

Another Presidential representative, Maia Kopaleishvili, claimed that the conclusion was biased. She said that “the Constitutional Court, one by one, fully shared the opinions of the authors of the constitutional complaint, only adding certain definitions, and considered the powers of the President in foreign relations to be exclusively within the purview of sub-paragraph A of the first paragraph of Article 52″ in sub-paragraph A.” [which states that President “exercises representative powers in foreign relations with the approval of the Government, conducts negotiations with other States and international organizations, concludes international agreements, accepts the accreditation of ambassadors and other diplomatic representatives of other States and international organizations; appoints and dismisses Georgian ambassadors and heads of diplomatic missions on the recommendation of the Government].

According to Kopaleishvili, the Constitutional Court “did not bother to even differentiate” between the President’s foreign policy powers outlined in Article 52 and those specified in other articles, or “whether the President has the authority to engage in basic foreign relations.”

Also Read:

• 05/10/2023 – Updated: 3 Days of the Constitutional Court Deliberation on President’s Impeachment

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