The Working Group set up in the Legal Issues Committee to work on the judicial reforms held the first sitting to identify the challenges the judicial system encounters as they estimate.

According to the Chair of the Committee and Head of the Group, Anri Okhanashvili, MPs identified over 30 issues to be discussed at the next meeting scheduled for August 25.

“We enabled every party to express their opinion concerning challenges and the solutions. We concluded the list of the issues to be discussed, namely, overloaded courts, lack of judges, adherence to the procedural terms, revision of the decision-making by the High Council of Justice, revision of the quorum of the election of the Supreme Court Judges by the Parliament, and the disciplinary aspects. Today, we outlined more than 30 issues and the extent they constitute the challenge shall be substantiated, explained and grounded. Thus, we opted to use a reasonable term of a week to allow every party to submit their arguments. All the submitted arguments will be accumulated and in detail discussed at the next meeting on August 15 with the participation of the authors”, - he noted.

The Working Group is composed of MPs from the Faction “Georgian Dream” and the Parliamentary Opposition, as well as the representatives of the High Council of Justice, Supreme Court, Ministry of Justice, Prosecutor’s Office, Bar Association, Association of Mediators, Business Association, Legal Aid Service, Public Defender and civil society (EaP Civil Society Forum National Platform of Georgia).

The Parliamentary Opposition is represented by MPs from “Citizens”, “European Socialists”, and “Girchi”, as well as the non-Faction MPs.

As the plan prescribes, the Bill shall be initiated no later than December 21, 2022, and shall be submitted to OSCE/ODIHR and Venice Commission prior to the II reading for the opinions.

The Working Group has been set up in view of the development of the respective legal changes for leading Georgia to receive the EU candidate status.