The Constitutional Court of Georgia, which is hearing the ruling Georgian Dream party’s lawsuit to ban five opposition parties, has rejected another opposition motion to involve Venice Commission experts in the proceedings.
The Plenum of the Constitutional Court held an in-court deliberation and unanimously denied the motion. Presiding Judge Revaz Nadaraia stated that the request was “extremely unfounded.”
“There are numerous international instruments, including pan-European standards on party bans developed by the Venice Commission, European human rights case law, and many other documents establishing standards on the matter before us, which forms the subject of today’s dispute.
At the same time, the court deemed the motion to summon these witnesses as experts completely unsubstantiated. In general, hearing from fine European jurists is beneficial, but they can be heard elsewhere. Exactly how this would have assisted in the adjudication of this case was not substantiated,” Nadaraia stated.
The motion was filed by Giorgi Sioridze, a representative of the Lelo party, who requested that three Venice Commission experts be permitted to participate remotely in the proceedings regarding the ban on opposition parties.
“How would this have helped? By ensuring that in public perception, the court’s ruling would not merely be lawful, just, and compliant with constitutional norms, but would be unequivocally perceived by everyone as such—rendered by an independent and impartial court,” Sioridze said.
Notably, this marks the second consecutive day that the Constitutional Court has rejected every motion filed by the opposition parties.
