Mamuka Mdinaradze, who is the Executive Secretary of the Georgian Dream (GD) and the Chairperson of the GD's Parliamentary Faction, says that the GD will not put forward a candidate for Public Defender unless the opposition sabotages the process or doesn't put forward candidates on purpose. According to him, the ruling party resolved to file legislative revisions in Parliament that would specify the broad standards for judging a candidate for the public defender after consultations with the opposition and civil society and taking into consideration their perspective. Mdinaradze said that this would also enable the Speaker of Parliament to issue an extraordinary order to specify the criteria for judging any candidacy. The member of parliament for the ruling party laid out the main rules for picking and judging candidates for the public defender:
-
Anyone may propose a candidate for the position of a public defender.
-
Each candidate will be evaluated by a group composed of representatives of civil society (including representatives of professional and academic circles) according to the criteria specified in the regulations;
-
After that, the candidates, of which there must be at least seven, will be presented with their evaluations to Parliament for election;
-
There will be no maximum for the number of candidates that can be presented.
According to Mikheil Sarjveladze, a member of the ruling party and the Chair of the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee, Parliament will start admitting candidates on September 20. "In parallel, a 9-member working committee made up of representatives from civil society groups and elite academic institutions will be established by Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili to assess applicants. By October 13th, the panel will be asked to analyse every candidate, at which point all pertinent information and evaluations will be sent to Parliament. Then, Parliament is scheduled to choose and nominate candidates for Public Defender by no later than October 21st. Following that, the procedure will be transferred to the committee, where the selected candidates will be publicly heard and members of civil society will be allowed to attend meetings," MP Sarjveladze stated.
Response from opposition members and NGOs
According to Khatia Dekanoidze, MP from the United National Movement, plans by the ruling party to alter how the public defender is chosen were met with suspicion by certain members of the opposition, a direct indicator that Georgian Dream does not plan on appointing an independent public defender and, in general, on completing this essential aspect of the European Commission's recommendations.
According to MP Paata Manjgaladze of Strategy Aghmashenebeli, the strategy of the ruling party is another political fraud. MP said, "The non-government groups they control will choose a candidate [for public defender] based on the process suggested by the ruling party."
Nika Simonishvili, the Chair of the Georgian Young Lawyers' Association (GYLA), said that the process raises several questions in terms of its dependability. Simonishvili emphasised the significance of an inclusive process, saying that perhaps the government will not directly nominate [the candidate for Public Defender], but the commission created by it and the persons designated within it will nominate the candidate or candidates who will be acceptable to the government.
