The Parliament of Georgia is scheduled to elect the non-judicial members of the High Council of Justice in a plenary session today. For the first time in Georgia’s judicial history there will be representatives of the civic society in the High Council of Justice.

As a result of recent amendments made to the organic law on common law courts, MPs will select six members for the High Council of Justice from candidates provided by lawyers, NGOs from the legal sector, and the academic community. This method of election is clearly a step forward. However, if one takes into consideration how important these elections are in terms of public interest, we believe that parliament should have given the candidates the opportunity to have made public speeches.

The agenda for today’s plenary session does not include speeches delivered by the High Council of Justice candidates. We believe that had the candidates been given the opportunity to address the public and MPs at plenary, it would have both contributed to the openness of the process and facilitated MPs in their decision-making. This is of great importance since these candidates have been nominated by the public and thus the public should have an opportunity to observe Parliament’s decision-making, as well as understand why the supreme legislative body chose certain candidates over others.

Moreover, it is crucial that politics is excluded as much as possible from this process. We urge MPs to support candidates who are free from political influences, have respective experience, and have solid intentions concerning improvements to the management of the judicial system.

Transparency International Georgia and Article 42 of the Constitution nominated well-known professionals as their candidates for the High Council of Justice and the Disciplinary Panel: Davit Kereselidze, Kakha Tsikarishvili, Zurab Dzlierishvili and Giorgi Giorgadze. These candidates are highly competent and have admirable viewpoints.

We would like to once again express our hope that the Parliament of Georgia elects candidates who are respectable and will support the continuation of the judicial reform and its independence of the court system.