Group of Independent Lawyers (GIL) responds to the campaign against judge Nino Bakakuri and demands real reforms

Recently, the clan dominating the court and the ruling government has launched a targeted campaign to discredit Supreme Court judge Ms. Nino Bakakuri. Deputies who left the political party Georgian dream, pro-government media, and experts are also involved in the campaign. The discrediting campaign against the judge began when the Ministry of Justice announced the competition in the European institutions for the early replacement of Ms. Nino Bakakuri with a new member.

The European institutions have repeatedly expressed critical opinions regarding the judicial system of Georgia in the recent period. Against this background, on August 2, the Ministry of Justice announced a competition for the selection of a new member to be appointed as a member of the Consultative Council of European Judges while Nino Bakakuri's term of membership in the said body has not yet expired. The minister explained the announcement of the competition by the fact that a new representative should be selected based on new sophisticated procedures. The minister did not bring any other weighty arguments in favour of terminating the powers of the incumbent member. However, the new procedure did not turn out to be transparent either, because the process of selecting and interviewing candidates took place behind closed doors. Neither the term of the new representative nor the grounds for the challenge have been determined, as a result, there remains the possibility of improper use of administrative discretion in the future.

Judge Nino Bakakuri has been exercising judicial powers in the Supreme Court since 2014. She is a member of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) and a member of the Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE) of the Council of Europe until 2024.

The "Coalition for an independent and transparent judiciary" and even the Consultative Council of European Judges reacted to the announcement of a competition for the position of the incumbent member of the Consultative Council of European Judges before the expiration of the term, which is quite a rare case in the Council's practice.

It is possible that the desire to appoint a new member in the European institutions is conditioned by the fact that Ms. Nino Bakakuri is not seen as a judge affiliated with the judicial clan, and performs her duty independently and impartially in the European institutions:

• Since 2004, Nino Bakakuri held the position of a judge in the Tbilisi Court of Appeals, which she left in 2008. Later, she explained her decision to resign by the situation in the court at that moment - the lack of independence of judges.

• In 2014, President Margvelashvili presented her candidacy to the Parliament, the majority of which was represented by the coalition Georgian Dream. It was the only way to bypass the clan and get into the judiciary system. She is one of the two judges whose candidacy was supported by the ruling coalition - Georgian Dream, as well as by the opposition parties.

The discrediting nature of the current campaign against Ms. Nino Bakakuri has been confirmed by the statements made by several experts on "Imedi" TV:

• The experts, referring to detailed statistical data, accuse Judge Nino Bakakuri of delaying consideration of cases and violating the timeframes set for issuing court decisions. The presentation of the statistical data by an expert, which is not accessible to an ordinary citizen, raises doubts. Interestingly, the mentioned statistical data is not available on the court's website either. Obtaining statistics on a particular judge or court composition is extremely difficult in practice. For example, we were denied information on the number of decisions made by the Tbilisi City Court within a specific period, on the grounds that the court does not maintain such statistics.

The problem of delaying case proceedings and the workload of judges has long been known to the professional community. Therefore, to say that the violation of procedural timeframes is only one judge's problem is not an objective assessment:

• The delay in case proceedings was named as one of the main systemic challenges by the working group established within the parliamentary format.

• According to the Public Defender's 2021 report, the data received from the Court of Cassation show that 62% of inadmissibility judgments by the Civil Cases Panel were issued in violation of the statutory deadlines, and only 2.9% of the cassation complaints known as admissible were considered within the timeframes established by law. The situation is even more serious in the Administrative Cases Panel, where only 1 case out of 722 known to be admissible was considered by the Chamber within the time limits established by law. According to the same report, despite the significant increase in the number of judges of the Supreme Court, there has been a dramatic regression instead of progress with regard to prompt and effective justice.

• The Public Defender's report also notes the unequal workload of judges. During eleven months, 15 cases were forwarded to the Chairperson of the Civil Cases Panel of the Supreme Court for consideration, while the rest of the judges received on average 143 cases, respectively.

• As in previous years, in the reporting period, violations of the terms for delivering well-founded court decisions in the district and Supreme Courts were also identified.

• Every year, on the basis of its decision, the High Council of Justice releases dozens of judges from charges of delaying cases, since the real reason for the above is court overload and not the culpable action of judges.

Considering the above practice, the opinion of a member of the Council of Justice, Mr. Gocha Abuseridze, is selective. Since 2021, Gocha Abuseridze has been a judge of the very panel of the Supreme Court, where only one case was considered within the timeframes established by law throughout the year. In addition, talking about the guilt of the judge without examining the additional circumstances when it comes to the violation of the procedural terms, contradicts the practice of the High Council of Justice itself. For example, in one of the disciplinary cases, the High Council of Justice, when analyzing the case, took into account the fact that in 2018-2019, the number of judges in the Supreme Court of Georgia decreased, which led to an increase in the workload, and therefore, no disciplinary sanctions were initiated against judges.

A similar comment was made by Mr. Irakli Kadagishvili, a Georgian Dream MP, who, without providing any supplementary information, accused the judge of biased delaying of cases.

In the context of the orchestrated assault against the judge, the "Association - Unity of Judges of Georgia", as well as the Georgian Women Judges Association, whose declared goal is to protect the independence of judges and activate the women judges, remain silent. Meanwhile, a member of the Council of Justice, the constitutional guarantor of the independence of the judiciary, is directly involved in the planned discriminatory campaign against the judge.

The attempt to replace Nino Bakakuri ahead of the schedule in the Consultative Council of European Judges indicates that the ruling power, together with the influential group of the court, instead of addressing the issues identified by the European institutions, seeks to "embellish" them and prolong the clan rule. One of the ways to achieve this is to appoint to important positions those who are loyal to the clan's rule and to send permanent messages to judges that holding opinions dissenting from the clan is punishable.

At a very crucial moment on the country's path to European integration, all branches of government must understand that the court, which is ruled by the clan, impedes the country's European integration. We call on the governing authorities to:

• Refrain from terminating prematurely the office of Ms. Nino Bakakuri, the judge known for her independence and impartiality.

• Carry out realistic and tangible reforms to address the third priority named in the European Commission's recommendation - to ensure a fully and truly independent chain of the judiciary.