For the third time, the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) has submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Constitutional Court regarding a constitutional lawsuit filed by members of parliament seeking to ban five opposition parties.
According to the organization, the document analyzes international standards and the national legal framework governing the extreme restriction of the freedom of association.
“This lawsuit represents a declaration by the ruling party that it does not merely wish to eliminate one specific party from the opposition, but intends to ban all parties that were granted a mandate by Georgian citizens to serve as the opposition. Georgian Dream is attempting, through the Constitutional Court of Georgia, to ban opposition political parties, including all political forces that crossed the 5 percent threshold in the elections of October 26, 2024.
In the parliamentary elections on October 26, 2024, the Coalition for Change – Gvaramia, Melia, Girchi, Droa; Unity – National Movement; Strong Georgia – Lelo, For the People, For Freedom; and the Gakharia for Georgia party jointly received 784,830 votes from Georgian citizens. Upholding this lawsuit by the Constitutional Court would be tantamount to disenfranchising 37.79% of voters who participated in the election. This lawsuit strikes a blow against pluralistic, multiparty democracy, as it seeks to eliminate not just a single party with broad public support, but all parties in which the population of Georgia placed their trust during the recent parliamentary elections.
The concept of defensive democracy, cited repeatedly by the plaintiff in the lawsuit, refers to the idea of a democratic system prepared to use preventive illiberal measures to protect itself against anti-democratic forces seeking to dismantle its fundamental principles using democratic mechanisms themselves. The purpose of this theoretical model is the self-defense of the democratic order against internal threats; however, its application only makes sense when the political system itself retains its democratic character. If a regime loses its democratic nature and deploys the concept of defensive democracy against political opponents, this theory loses its foundation and turns into a legal instrument of politically motivated repression,” the Association’s statement reads.
The young lawyers emphasize that the consideration of banning political parties in Georgia takes place against an extremely difficult political backdrop characterized by the concentration of power in the hands of a single party, the gradual erosion of democratic pluralism, the systemic repression of opposition political parties and independent civic space, and the instrumentalization of the legal framework for narrow partisan interests.
The authors believe that the goal of banning opposition parties is not to protect the democratic constitutional order, but to eliminate political competition and preserve the ruling party’s grip on power.
“It is inadmissible to destroy, in the name of defending democracy, the very political alternatives whose existence is an indispensable prerequisite for democracy.
The duty of the Constitutional Court is to protect the constitutional order, the foundation of which is not the unchecked rule of any single party, but respect for the will of voters, political diversity, and the possibility of a democratic transfer of power,” the statement concludes.
