“The idea of the Judicial Resident Legal Advisor Program was to build the individual capacity of Georgian judges, and I think it’s been a tremendous success. We are looking forward to continuing this program based on suggestions from individual judges as to where they see U.S. support most useful,” US Ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan told reporters on Friday.

The Ambassador noted that the program was designed to pair up Georgian judges with American judges.

“This was a great opportunity to review and celebrate the many successes of our Resident Legal Advisor judicial program. This program began in 2018 through the Department of Justice, funded through the State Department’s Bureau of International Law Enforcement and Narcotics, INL, designed to pair up Georgian judges with American judges.

This has been a phenomenal success. We’ve had 50 Georgian judges who’ve had a chance to go on study visits to the United States, to meet with American judges, to watch trials in courtrooms, to watch jury selection, and many different experiences of observing the administration of justice in the United States.

We’ve had nine American judges come to Georgia, even in the middle of the pandemic, so it was quite an accomplishment to see how justice is administered in courtrooms throughout Georgia. We’ve had thousands of judges and judicial practitioners here, trained in different trainings that were conducted in cooperation with the High Council of Justice in Georgia.

That’s just the beginning. There have been so many successes, and we are looking forward to continuing this program based on suggestions from individual judges as to where they see U.S. support most useful. The idea of this program was to build the individual capacity of Georgian judges, and I think it’s been a tremendous success,” Kelly Degnan stated.