Judge Resigns Ahead of Case on Banning the Opposition

Two developments from the Constitutional Court that perfectly explain one another: on October 13, the court accepted a case seeking to ban opposition parties, while simultaneously, Judge Manana Kobakhidze resigned of her own accord.

On October 13, Constitutional Court Judge Manana Kobakhidze stepped down ahead of schedule by submitting her own resignation. 

A day earlier, she requested recusal from the high-profile case concerning the ban on five opposition parties. Kobakhidze officially cited legal ethics, arguing that as one of the founders of the ruling party, her participation in the proceedings could raise public doubts about the court’s impartiality. 

Her fellow judges rejected the request. At a briefing, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze also stated that a political past from a decade ago was no reason to shirk one’s duties. Yet the very next day, the judge simply resigned, refusing to offer any further comment. 

A historian and jurist by profession, Kobakhidze led the human rights organization “Article 42 of the Constitution” in the 2000s. In 2011, she became a key ally of Bidzina Ivanishvili, co-founding Georgian Dream alongside him. She later served as party chair and first deputy speaker of parliament, before joining the Constitutional Court in 2017 under the ruling majority’s quota. Now, an insider from the very core of the system—who for years supported the government’s most unpopular decisions—has decided to step aside on the eve of a historic trial. Why?

Few give credence to the official explanation of “judicial ethics.” Critics and the opposition are convinced the real motive is entirely different. The proceedings over a lawsuit seeking the de facto dissolution of the entire parliamentary opposition coincided with a blistering resolution from the European Parliament, which explicitly described official Tbilisi’s actions as an attempt to establish a one-party regime. Evidently, judges who legitimize this ban run the risk of facing personal sanctions—entailing frozen assets, revoked visas, and pariah status for the rest of their lives. For Kobakhidze, who had only a few months left of her ten-year judicial term, those risks appear to have proven far too high. 

Her resignation leaves only seven of the nine judges on the Constitutional Court, with two seats now vacant. Filling these seats quickly will be impossible: electing new judges under the parliamentary quota requires the backing of at least 90 MPs, whereas Georgian Dream holds only 89. For this exact reason, one of the seats has remained unfilled since March 2025. 

This, however, does not run counter to the law—technically, the remaining seven judges are entirely sufficient for the court to proceed with its business. On October 21–23, the Constitutional Court will commence hearings on the ban of the five opposition parties. According to opposition leaders, court summonses were served to them on an expedited basis.