Giorgi Kandelaki in his speech on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe raised the issue of upcoming parliamentary elections in Georgia and appointment of Supreme Court judges for lifetime tenure.

“In June 2019 when the Georgian society displayed its anger at Russian communist MP Sergei Gavrilov sitting in the chair of the Speaker and being invited by the Georgian Dream chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili, the oligarch – it’s another problem that he runs the country – committed to switching to proportional system, which really has been the hallmark of what the Council of Europe has been asking from Georgia for years and years.

Unfortunately in November, Georgian Dream staged a fake rebellion of majoritarian MPs.

Now, we have under international pressure dialogue between government and opposition, and it is so important that the draft resolution says that whatever the outcome of this dialogue, it should have trust of all parties. Indeed that’s key and crucial factor for credibility and legitimacy of the upcoming elections.

I also want to speak about judiciary. There is a consensus among all credible players that the appointment of 14 judges to the Supreme Court for lifetime tenure was marred with serous deficiencies, what they call in legal jargon: court stucking. This is something that requires further attention, so that the remaining posts are not filled in the same way with candidates without any credibility, whose only qualification is being political allies of Georgian Dream”, - said Giorgi Kandelaki.