We are responding to a news item about the report of our study on the recruitment policy in the civil service – which was aired in the Courier news program on Rustavi 2 at 9 PM yesterday – in which the journalist stated that one of the main causes of dismissals was the political motive. We would like to note that such interpretation does not correspond with the truth, and it was not mentioned in our study. The report talks about several isolated cases in connection with which our organization expressed doubts that the dismissal of individuals in concrete cases might have been politically motivated.

In addition, in the same news item, several ministers unequivocally denied cases of dismissal of employees from their agencies and expressed doubt in the information contained in our report. We would like to point out that the statistics used in the study were provided by their ministries themselves. Accordingly, it is strange that the ministers denied the figures cited in the study. You can see the information provided by the four ministries mentioned in the news item in the attached files.

We are also responding to a statement that was made by the Ministry of Justice in response to our study today and would like to point out that this Ministry was a rare exception which provided us with requested information in full. The letter sent in reply to our request which indicated the total number of dismissed and appointed individuals was also accompanied by additional information, including copies of all orders on the appointment and dismissal of employees, details on the process of the competition, and documentation on the assessment of candidates (1,960 pages). The summary document failed to mention that a part of the employees had been reappointed from one agency subordinated to the Ministry to another. We think it probable that the orders on the appointment/dismissal of hundreds of people (which also include orders on the appointment to other agencies in addition to the Ministry of Justice) contain repeated entries of identical individuals. However, our organization could not identify all the individuals mentioned in the documentation on both appointment and dismissal. It would have been good if the Ministry had directly indicated in the letter that a certain number of employees had been reappointed. If it had done so, it would have definitely been reflected in our report, whose accuracy has been questioned by the Ministry today. We thank the Ministry of Justice of Georgia for the explanation which we will include in the study by all means.