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While Georgia hopes to be granted EU-candidate status, its government seems unwilling to reform the judiciary, as demanded by both Brussels and the US. One of the 12 recommendations of the European Commission is an effective judicial reform. International reports regularly state that the judiciary in Georgia is a tool of political influence and hinders the country's aspirations to join the EU – or the larger Western, euro-atlantic democracies. One of the latest alarm signals from the West was the imposition by the US State Department of sanctions against four high-ranking Georgian judges. Opponents of the authorities call these judges the creators of the so-called judicial clan, acting in the interests of the ruling party.
Georgia’s politically-connected “judicial clan” and the four judges sanctioned by the US
On April 5, the US State Department imposed sanctions on four Georgian judges and their families. Corruption and abuse of power were cited as the reasons. It is worth noting that this is the first time that the United States has applied a sanctions mechanism against Georgian citizens.
The US sanctions affected three current, life-term, judges and one former judge. The four – and their families – were banned from entering the United States, but no freezing of accounts or other financial consequences were announced so far. However, the State Department promised to continue to monitor those who "abuse power" in Georgia, as well as to support judges who "have the integrity and courage to act impartially and independently."
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a statement that "these individuals have abused their positions as chairmen of the courts and members of the High Council of Justice, thereby damaging the rule of law and public confidence in the court system in Georgia."
Representatives of the non-governmental sector in Georgia call the sanctioned judges members of an influential “judicial clan”, closely associated with the Georgian Dream and personally with the shadow leader of the party, Bidzina Ivanishvili. This clan allegedly controls the judiciary and has the leverage to appoint, promote and punish judges, NGOs say. They have also been associated with the regime of former president Mikheil Saakashvili during his time in office.
Levan Murusidze is a lifelong judge of the Court of Appeal and a member of the High Council of Justice, which decides on the appointment of judges in the Georgian judiciary.
Murusidze has been a Supreme Court judge since 2006, when Mikheil Saakashvili was President of Georgia, and quite soon he came under criticism when, in 2007, he commuted the sentence of the policemen accused of the infamous murder of Sandro Girgvliani, a bank employee. The Georgian court was even criticized in Strasbourg for such a decision.
However, after the change of power, Murusidze was not removed from the system, but, on the contrary, was promoted. In 2016, Ivanishvili personally met with him and lobbied for Murusidze's career advancement and called him a “victim of the system”.
In 2019, Georgian Dream chairman Irakli Kobakhidze also spoke in favor of the discredited judges: “People who did bad deeds en masse under the previous government are now doing good deeds.”
In addition, Georgian investigative journalists found out that Murusidze has undeclared property registered in the name of his common-law wife. Commenting on the sanctions, he said: “It's nothing if they don't let us into the US or the EU now. So my grandfather did not go there and still lived like a human.”
The sanctions also included Mikhail Chinchaladze, chairman of the Tbilisi Court of Appeal and, allegedly, the head of the so-called “judicial clan” in Georgia. In 2005, he received the Order of Honor from President Mikheil Saakashvili. Therefore, the appointment of Chinchaladze to the Supreme Court of Georgia in 2018 was controversial even for some of the Georgian Dream party rank and file.
Another sanctioned judge, Irakli Shengelia, Chinchaladze's deputy and his closest aide, has close ties to the Georgian Dream party. Commenting on the sanctions, he said that he had nothing to do in the United States where "the ability to change the sex of a six-year-old child" is considered the main democratic achievement.
Valerian Tsertsvadze, the last of the four, is a former judge who left the system six years ago after being accused of favoring his company in a lawsuit. His daughter is a US citizen as she was born there in 2013.
Both Saakashvili and his Georgian Dream opponents promised an independent judiciary and none delivered
After winning the 2004 presidential election, Mikheil Saakashvili promised the independence of the judiciary. He carried out a number of drastic measures, including mass dismissals of judges and their replacement with new cadres. That worked against reducing corruption at the lower levels, but the courts were still under political influence.
Also, the judicial system under Saakashvili was characterized by a strong accusatory bias. Those accused of a criminal offense in a Georgian court had very little chance of being acquitted. For example, in 2010 the Tbilisi City Court heard 7,296 criminal cases, and only in 21 cases (0.04 percent) were the defendants acquitted.
Many hoped that the situation would change in 2012, when the Georgian Dream party came to power, since one of Bidzina Ivanishvili's main campaign promises was an independent and fair judiciary.
However, 11 years later, observers note that the Georgian Dream not only did not get rid of the judges who followed the political instructions of the previous government but, on the contrary, promoted those very judges in the judicial system and later used them for their own interests.
Transparency International-Georgia noted in its 2020 report that the authorities have failed to show “the political will for a full and thorough reform of the judiciary”. The Georgian Dream has implemented two waves of judicial reform since 2016, but the government's approach has been largely fragmented and inconsistent. In some cases, the reform served only to strengthen the interests of a narrow group.
Experts note that the judiciary is the main support for the power of the Georgian Dream, whose rating is at a historical low. Recent opinion poll from IRI (International Republican Institute) showed that the ruling party currently has the support of only 19 percent of the population. The same survey showed that 46 percent of respondents negatively assess the work of the Georgian judiciary.
Experts believe that in order to maintain power for the losing rating of the Georgian Dream, it is important to maintain control over the judiciary.
The Georgian Dream defended the judges who fell under the sanctions, and rejected three times an initiative put forth by the opposition after the sanctions were announced to create a parliamentary commission which was supposed to investigate corruption in the judiciary.
On April 6, Georgian Foreign Minister Ilya Darchiashvili wrote a letter to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, noting that the State Department's decision to sanction the four judges is incomprehensible and unacceptable. He urged the US to provide evidence or reconsider the decision.
“Otherwise, Georgia and the Georgian people will perceive this as pressure on an independent judiciary of a sovereign state and gross interference in its activities, which will damage the long-standing friendly relations between Georgia and the United States”, the letter says.
The minister insisted that since coming to power in 2012, the Georgian Dream government has only improved the situation in the judiciary, which was the “heavy legacy” of the Saakashvili government.
In response, the head of the press service of the US State Department, Vedanta Patela, said that Washington does not doubt the accuracy of the information on the basis of which the sanctions were imposed. U.S. Ambassador to Tbilisi Kelly Degnan added that much of this information comes from “open sources”. In response, the leader of the ruling party, Irakli Kobakhidze, in his usual manner, accused the West of trying to interfere with an independent judiciary.
“We cannot allow a return to the situation in the judicial system that existed before 2012, when there were systemic problems in the judiciary, when the judiciary was used for repression, we cannot allow this. If they want to sanction someone, they should start with Saakashvili, whose release they are actively demanding, and start with [ex-Minister of Justice Zurab] Adeishvili, who is walking around Europe. Start with these people and then talk to us.”
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said that he was in solidarity with the judges and the judiciary that fell under the sanctions: “As the head of government and a representative of the ruling party, I fully support all judges”.
The prime minister held a closed meeting in the Supreme Court with members of the High Council of Justice, following which he promised them “protection”. Garibashvili announced that the judges, including those against whom sanctions were applied, are in fact “highly qualified, professional and consciously serve the independence and strengthening of the country”. The prime minister promised to “do everything possible to protect the court from any interference” including “from the outside”.
Garibashvili also noted that according to the Equity Index, Georgia is ahead of 11 EU member states and 13 NATO member states, including in the ratings of corruption perceptions, and trust in the judiciary is at a historical high of 55%, significantly higher than it was during Saakashvili’s tenure – “then it was almost at zero”. However, according to the same Equity Index, Georgia’s performance has been steadily declining since 2015. According to the Justice or Rule of Law Index, Georgia ranks 49th out of 140 countries. At the same time, Georgia ranks first among 14 countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It is followed by Kosovo and North Macedonia. Georgia, of course, is ahead of the three countries with the lowest scores in the region - Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey.
The “judicial clan” may derail Georgia from the Western path wanted by most of its citizens
In recent years, the justice system in Georgia has been repeatedly criticized by international organizations. The State Department over the past three years not only criticized the Georgian court in every report, but also used the term "clan". The first mention of the judicial clan appeared in 2018. In the 2020 State Department Report on the State of Human Rights in Georgia, the problems in court were mentioned nine times.
The point about “politicized justice” was also in the so-called “Charles Michel Agreement”, signed between the authorities and the opposition in April 2021. Due to the withdrawal of the ruling party from the agreement at the end of July 2021 and violation of the prescribed conditions, Tbilisi then lost the EU macro-financial assistance in the amount of 75 million euros. And in a report published by the US State Department on the state of human rights in Georgia in 2022, among other things, it was said about the presence of political prisoners in the country. The case of Nika Gvaramia, director of the opposition TV company Mtavari Arkhi, was cited as an example. In addition, the document mentioned torture, inhuman, cruel and degrading treatment against ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili.
The document states that the “Coalition for Independent Justice” believes that the action plan developed by the parliament and amendments to the law do not solve the main problems, such as informal clan influence in the justice system. The report also states that during the 2022 reporting period, several former judges publicly confirmed that they were pressured by other judges in specific cases.
The warnings from the West continued after the State Department imposed sanctions against Georgian judges in early April. Former US Assistant Secretary of State David Kramer called the sanctions a clear message to those involved in anti-democratic and corrupt activities. Former US Ambassador to Georgia William Courtney did not rule out that the continuation of corrupt activities could lead to new punitive measures. And Luke Coffey, an expert at the Heritage Foundation, called the State Department's decision a call to Tbilisi to “wake up”.
Experts note that the so-called judicial clan pursues the interests of a separate political group, which run counter to the interests of the state. Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations are confirmed by all the latest opinion polls and are written into the constitution, but the actions of the judiciary run counter to these aspirations.
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