Papuashvili: After 14 years of calling us unconstitutional, the opposition can now let the court decide who is

“Georgia’s party-political landscape is none of foreign political actors’ business,” said Shalva Papuashvili, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament.

He said the Georgian authorities cannot accept criticism from foreign political actors when parties have been banned in various other countries.

“It was not our business which parties were declared unconstitutional in Ukraine or Moldova, and it is not our business that in Germany they are planning to file a constitutional lawsuit against the main opposition party. Incidentally, I would stress that the main opposition party in Germany today, and the party with the highest rating in the country, Alternative for Germany, is officially under surveillance by the German government’s intelligence services. It is being monitored; agents have been planted inside it. Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, the equivalent of the State Security Service, has officially placed the country’s main opposition party under direct surveillance. So when such things are happening in other countries, we certainly cannot accept any criticism from them,” Papuashvili said.

He said that once the parties are banned, “the political process will be cleansed of a toxic environment, and other parties will be able to speak to their voters in a competitive environment”.

“The result of banning the parties will be that the current situation, in which these parties poison Georgia’s political and party process, will change, and this toxic, poisoned political process will be cleansed. Other parties will then be able to speak to their voters, to Georgian society, in a competitive environment.

The unconstitutional parties we are suing are engaging in patently unfair competition, exploiting illegal methods to the detriment of all other parties. It is like unfair competition in business, where a company doesn’t pay taxes, launders money, engages in dumping and so on. That is exactly how these parties behave: they violate the Constitution, use violence and use foreign governments against Georgia. So the other parties are not competing on a level playing field. On top of that, these parties poison Georgia’s political processes. So this can only benefit our democracy,” Papuashvili said.

The Speaker said that for 14 years the collective National Movement has been saying the Georgian government is unconstitutional, which is why Georgian Dream has turned to the court to determine, once and for all, whether it is Georgian Dream or these parties that are unconstitutional.

“For 14 years we have been hearing from this collective UNM that the Georgian government is not legitimate. For 14 years they have denied the Georgian government’s domestic and international legitimacy. For 14 years, the collective UNM has said that the Georgian government and Georgian Dream are unconstitutional. So we have turned to the Constitutional Court to determine, once and for all, whether we are unconstitutional or they are. That is how the collective National Movement itself has framed the issue over the past 14 years. This is why we have taken our case to the Constitutional Court. We maintain that the collective National Movement is unconstitutional, and the court’s ruling will ultimately confirm this. If, over these 14 years, the collective National Movement claimed that Georgian Dream was unconstitutional and the government illegitimate, they had 14 years to go to the Constitutional Court. It takes 30 MPs to file a claim if something was unconstitutional. But they had no grounds. We, on the other hand, have solid grounds, so we went to the Constitutional Court, and we hope the court will take our arguments into account,” Papuashvili said.