“Nations in Transit 2020” – the Freedom House publishes an annual report. It talks about the “dropping of democratic façade” in Central and Eastern European countries.

The Freedom House report assesses the degree of democracy in countries. Last year, Georgia’s score was 3.29 points, however, this year the figure has slightly worsened to 3.25 points.

“Recent developments in Georgia provide a harrowing example of what that could look like. While the judiciary has long been a flashpoint in Georgia’s polarized politics, arbitrary arrests and a number of controversial court cases in 2019 and early 2020 further aggravated an already tense situation. A new entrant into the political field, businessman Mamuka Khazaradze, was slapped with money-laundering charges as soon as he announced the founding of a political movement, and a more established opposition leader was sentenced to 38 months in prison in a reheated case involving the alleged misuse of public funds. In an ominous sign that such incidents would not be limited to the lower courts, the ruling majority in Parliament granted lifelong tenure to 14 new justices on the country’s Supreme Court following a “highly dysfunctional and unprofessional” appointment process”, - reads the report.