Public Defender Appoints New Deputy
On January 29, the Public Defender of Georgia Levan Ioseliani appointed a new Deputy Public Defender Irine Chikhladze who will coordinate and supervise the activities of the Department of Children’s Rights, the Gender Department, the Department of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Equality Department and the Regional Division of the Public Defender’s Office.
The position became vacant when former Deputy Public Defender Natia Julakidze resigned in an unpublicized manner a few months ago. Julakidze had been appointed by Public Defender Ioseliani in April 2023 and her appointment had caused controversy, as she is a niece of Aleko Elisashvili, a party colleague of Levan Ioseliani of the Citizens’ Party. Asked to comment on this, Julakidze said that she would “certainly criticize her uncle if he made a discriminatory statement”.
As for the new Deputy Public Defender, Chikhladze has previously worked for United Water Supply Company of Georgia in 2020-2024, first as an Advisor to the Director in 2020-2021, and then from 2021 as the Head of the donor-funded Project Management Department. According to the Public Defender’s Office, she is also a visiting professor of competition law and European law at the Georgian National University (SEU).
According to the source, Irine Chikhladze worked in Munich (Germany) at the Department of Combating Terrorism and Money Laundering of the Bavarian Insurance Chamber. She was a member of the Board of the Association of Georgians in Germany, a young ambassador of Georgia to the Federal Republic of Germany.
In 2016 -2017, Chikhladze was a chief specialist at the Georgian National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission, while in 2014-2016 she worked as an adviser of Legal and Methodological Support Department the Competition Agency of Georgia. She has also worked for the German Federal Antimonopoly Service (in Bonn) and the Office of the German Parliamentary Bureau (in Berlin).
She is a PhD student at the Faculty of Law of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and has received Master’s degree in law at the same university. She also has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU).
Also Read:
- 11/12/2023 – Public Defender Addresses Human Rights Challenges in Georgia on the International Human Rights Day
- 08/12/2023 – Georgian Public Defender Visits Kyiv
- 17/05/2023 – Public Defender: Rights Situation of LGBT+ People Remains Serious Problem
- 17/02/2023 – Public Defender’s Office Slams Draft Law on Foreign Agents
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)
