Supreme Court of Georgia

The Venice Commission recommends the Government cancellation of the appointment of the judges on the trial period

Published: 10/16/2014

On October 10-11, 2014, the Chairman of the Supreme Court of Georgia Mr. Konstantine Kublashvili attended the 100^th anniversary session of the Venice Commission of European Council, which was held in Rome, where was adopted three opinions concerning the amendments in civil, administrative and criminal procedure codes, as well as in the organic law on Common Courts of Georgia and the Law on Disciplinary Responsibility and Disciplinary Proceedings of Judges of Common Courts of Georgia.

The Venice Commission in its Opinion shared the position of Georgian Judiciary that it is inexpedient to appoint judges on 3-year trial period and once again stressed that it is necessary to make extra work in order to ensure the respect of the principles that guarantees judicial independence and irreplaceability of judges - “the trial period should be removed from the draft law, as well as from the Constitution, because it may put into question the independence of judges”- the Venice Commission (opinion 773/2014, paragraph 32).

The Council of European Parliamentary Assembly also gave the negative evaluation to the trial period for judges.

The Venice Commission underlines once more and recommends the Georgian government that the current Chairmen of the Courts should maintain their position until their expiration date, and the provisions that envisage election of Chairmen Judges by the other judges, not by the members of High Council of Justice, should launched not after the law will come into force, but after the current Chairpersons mandate expires. The Venice Commission considers that in order to ensure the principles of judicial independence and good administration of justice, the Article 2 presented in the draft law must be removed and the current Chairmen of the courts should remain on their positions before the expiry of their mandate (Opinion - 773/2014, paragraphs 97, 98, 99). In addition, the Venice Commission believes that the draft law does not provide sufficient guarantees with regard to the selection criteria, and considers that the presented provisions should be included in the criteria clearly and distinctly.

The Venice Commission also considered the most challenging part of the legislative amendments, which establishes the requirement to substantiate the Supreme Court Judgments on the refusal of the admissibility of the claim. While discussing the issues the Commission pointed out that the courts in any legal system are not required to answer all the arguments presented by the parties. The Venice Commission referring to the case-law of the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights considers that it is sufficient to give a narrow and limited justification in decision on the inadmissibility of the claim. The justification should include only why the court refuses the applicant to discuss his case. Detailed and in-depth justification may create case overloading in the Supreme Court.