The Media Advocacy Coalition reacts to the interview with former Supreme Court justice Besarion Alavidze, in which he discusses the facts of pressure on judges. According to Alavidze, in some cases the Supreme Council of Justice asked judges to take pre-agreed decisions. In his own words, justices were summoned to the cabinets [of supervisors] and “forced into street-style discussions” for them to achieve the desired results in certain cases.
Besarion Alavidze was appointed as the Supreme Court judge in February 2011 for a 10-year term. His term expired on 22 February 2021. Even in 2019, during his tenure as a Supreme Court judge, Alavidze spoke openly about nepotism and “collusions” in the system. He also confirmed the existence of the so-called “clan” in the court.
Besarion Alavidze’s statement was confirmed by Soso Gogashvili, a former high-ranking official of the State Security Service (SSG), who is currently in prison. In his speech circulated on social media networks, Gogashvili discussed a specific case, that the SSG, at the request from the Court of Appeals chairperson and one of the leaders of the so-called clan, Mikheil Chinchaladze, exerted pressure on Alavidze to make their desired ruling into Rustavi 2 TV case. It is known that in 2017 Alavidze was one of the justices in the case of Rustavi 2 TV and, together with 8 colleagues, attributed the private channel to Kibar Khalvashi.
For years, there has been well-founded criticism of the risk of corruption in the judicial system, which has been reinforced by the statements of former Supreme Court judge Alavidze and former high-ranking SSG official Soso Gogashvili. The need for reform of the judicial system is demonstrated by the criticism of local and international actors and severe allegations recently made by former judges.
We call on the Georgian Prosecutor’s Office to:
Ensure a full and objective investigation into the pressure on judges and other illegal actions, and inform the public of the results of the investigation in a timely manner. In particular, to investigate in detail the cases of possible pressure influencing the decision in the case of the Rustavi 2 TV company.
We also call on the Parliament of Georgia to:
Establish a temporary parliamentary commission to investigate the current situation in the Georgian judicial system. The analysis of the identified shortcomings should form the basis of the reform, the aim of which will be to free the judicial system from informal influences.
