“From February 1, 2025, your administrative contract will be terminated,” Moris Baramia, head of one of the key departments at the National Probation Agency under the Ministry of Justice, got this message on December 31. Two other department heads of the same institution – Nino Tkeshelashvili and Natia Aliashvili – were notified of their dismissals on the same day. The New Year’s presents were unwelcome but not unexpected despite their impeccable records. In a drive to crack down on dissent, the Georgian Dream government, struggling to justify its legitimacy, has lashed out at civil servants who have voiced dissent.
“We associate our dismissal with our openly stated positions on current political events and the dismissal of other employees,” Tkeshelashvili wrote on social media, describing recent public sector layoffs as “a purge on political grounds.”
Since the last week of late December, dozens have been dismissed from other state agencies and institutions, including the National Agency for Public Registry, the Public Service Hall, the Parliament, the Government Administration, the Tbilisi City Hall, etc. They all tell similar stories of being dismissed on the grounds of contract termination. They believe this is just a legalistic excuse.
All of them have participated in protests, expressed support for Georgia’s European integration, and publicly criticized the actions of the ruling party, especially its infamous November 28 decision to abandon the country’s EU path, as well as the subsequent repression and police violence against citizens.
The civil servants attribute their dismissal to their participation in protest rallies, their signing of the civil servants’ declaration in support of the country’s European integration, their criticism of the ruling party and their different political views.
Dozens of stories of dismissals have gone viral on social media. The dismissals target those “who have publicly expressed their civic position on the country’s European integration process since November 28,” echoed ISFED, a watchdog that announced it file a lawsuit on par with the Independent Trade Union of Civil Servants – Article 78 of the Constitution, to protect the labor rights of “more than 50 civil servants.”
“The state institutions use formal excuses, such as reorganization or dismissal due to the expiration of the contract, but the real reasons are obviously political and have to do with the persecution of civil servants for expressing different opinions,” the watchdog says.
Indeed, when Georgian Dream made a U-turn on foreign policy, several hundred civil servants reacted with outrage, distancing themselves in joint statements from the ruling party and expressing their commitment to the country’s European future.
- 29/11/2024 – Education Ministry Staff Distance Themselves from GD EU-Turn
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- 01/12/2024 – Georgian Civil Servants’ Statement
GD’s Irakli Kobakhidze then said that the system was “self-cleansing” and that the ruling party would “bring this [self-cleansing] process to an end,” apparently hinting at the expected purge. Indeed, the GD’s choice of a former footballer with no university education as president was the crowning glory of the ruling party’s preference for loyalists over professionals, especially when the latter were its critics.
To expedite the “cleansing,” at the end of December, the GD rushed through a series of repressive amendments to the Law on Civil Service. Lawyers and experts have pointed out from the outset that these changes would expose civil servants to unprecedented political pressure and summary dismissals. The fears have promptly materialized.
- 13/12/2024 – SJC Slams Draft Amendments to Public Service Law
“Unfortunately, it was precisely the law that the Georgian parliament rushed through that was used as a means of discriminatory action against us,” said Megi Katsitadze, the head of the Legal Department at the Public Service Hall, another dismissed worker who had been in the public service for 13 years.
Most of those who got their pink slips were either already employed on renewable contracts or had their civil servant status slashed and reclassified as “administrative contractors” under amendments signed into law by GD President Mikheil Kavelashvili on December 30.
The “administrative contract” is an euphemism for political appointments: no competition is needed, and no tenure is implied. The change affected department heads and their deputies, many of whom got notices as early as the day after the changes took effect, on New Year’s Eve.
The amendments go far beyond the mere reclassification of senior officials. They use “reorganization” as a tool to remove civil servants. Under the previous system, in the event of a reorganization, civil servants, at least on paper, had the option of transferring to another department or public institution, thus ensuring that they would not be dismissed from the service. This is no longer the case.
Furthermore, in the past, if a civil servant was dismissed due to reorganization and the court ruled that the dismissal was unfair, the civil servant could be reinstated. The legal recourse was also removed. The agency could give one month’s notice and the relevant back pay.
So far, the dismissals have mainly affected civil servants employed under “administrative contracts,” and the reorganization process itself has not been widely mentioned. Civil servants fear that after the initial wave of dismissals, the purge will continue.
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