The parliamentary opposition, represented by "Democracy Index - Georgia" and members of the Group of Independent Lawyers, are challenging the amendments to the organic law "On Common Courts" in the Constitutional Court

In December 2021, the Parliament hurriedly amended the Organic Law “On Common Courts”. The amendments violate the constitutional rights of judges, limit the guarantees of independence of individual judges, and increase the leverage for the influential ruling group in the court to pressurize individual judges.

The said amendments to the law have limited judges' freedom of expression, the right to hold office, and granted judicial members of the Council of Justice unlimited powers to send a judge to another court without his/her consent, to initiate prosecution against him/her on unclear grounds. The law does not meet the standart of foreseeability and allows judicial members of the Council of Justice to arbitrarily and selectively utilize the law for non-genuine purposes.

It is noteworthy that constitutional lawsuits challenging the legislative amendments have already been filed by a group of judges and the public defender. At least one-fifth of the Parliament members (30 MPs) are also entitled to file a constitutional claim on much broader legal grounds. With this claim, the part of the parliamentary opposition applies to the Constitutional Court not only with regard to the restriction of human rights, but also with a request to verify the compliance of the disputed law with the principles of the legal state, the rule of law, distribution of powers, and the guarantees of the independence of the judge.

The claimants in the Constitutional Court are members and independent deputies of the "United National Movement", "Lelo”,  Strategy “Aghmashenebeli", the political party "For Georgia".

The organization "Democracy Index - Georgia" and members of the Group of Independent Lawyers will represent the lawsuit of the members of the Parliament in the Constitutional Court.