Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili’s impeachment hearing will resume tomorrow at 11 a.m.

On October 3, the Constitutional Court launched a substantive consideration of the lawsuit against the  President over her alleged violation of the Constitution through her departure on an official visit overseas without the Government’s permission.

The President is represented by Tamar Chugoshvili, a former Georgian Dream MP, and Maia Kopaleishvili, a former judge of the Constitutional Court.

According to Chugoshvili, “the clearest and most extreme measure” of infringement would be “contact with countries that recognize the occupied territories of our country but do not recognize our occupation. When the Prime Minister signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China was also a government’s violation, and if the president had done that, it would have been a violation of Article 52. The Georgian Parliament set the country’s foreign policy priority by the constitution, which states that Georgia’s objective is to join the European Union and NATO. In no situation could the President act outside the scope of foreign policy as doing so would be illegal. Actions taken by the President that aim for communication with foreign countries without resulting in agreements, commitments, or changes in foreign policy are legal and constitutional actions.”

The Chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party Irakli Kobakhidze added: “Their [President’s representatives]  stances are pretty weak; they couldn’t say if the President’s visit was a business or a private visit for 10 minutes. Their arguments are not weak, but unheard of. It is shameful to be unable to distinguish between status and authority. This is not even a legal topic, it is a basic skill test.”