MP Makhashvili slams opposition claims over Strasbourg-settled cases as a ‘primitive attempt to evade justice’

“If there is anything the Georgian government wants to ban, curb and eliminate, it is violence and radicalisation in Georgian politics. The Constitutional Court cannot be an arena for political debate,” said MP Levan Makhashvili, chair of Parliament’s European Integration Committee.

Makhashvili stressed that as proceedings are underway at the Constitutional Court, the collective National Movement must provide legal answers instead of political spin and juggling.

“The legal charges are clearly set out: why, how and in what way. The lawsuit is backed by concrete evidence, ranging from Strasbourg court judgments to statements by this party’s own leaders and what they organised around the Georgian Parliament at the 2024 elections. So everything is clear, and political assessments are superfluous. This is nothing more than an attempt to hijack the legal proceedings and drag the issue back into the political arena. The public can see that we are trying to avoid political assessments. Legal charges require legal answers. Raising questions about cases on which both the Georgian courts and the Strasbourg court have ruled more than once is a primitive attempt to avoid giving specific legal answers to legal charges. Will these parties be banned? This can only benefit Georgian democracy and our democratisation process. After all, if these parties contributed anything to Georgia’s political arena, it was nothing but radicalisation and conflict. That is exactly what we are arguing at the Constitutional Court: that such so-called parties can have no place in Georgian politics,” Makhashvili said.