Speaker Papuashvili: Opposition’s refusal to recognise constitutional bodies “exposes their anti-democratic nature

“The anti-constitutional parties are confirming one of our charges against them: that they do not recognise the legitimacy of constitutional bodies, which is the main sign of rejecting democracy,” Shalva Papuashvili, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, told journalists.

Papuashvili said the more they say such things, the more the Constitutional Court itself will be convinced that the lawsuit is well founded.

“The very position these anti-constitutional parties have voiced, including during the Constitutional Court hearing, confirms our lawsuit. They say the Constitutional Court will deliver a decision written in Moscow, that the court is not independent and has already been told what to decide, and so on. In doing so, they confirm one of our charges against them: that they do not recognise the legitimacy of constitutional bodies, which is the main sign of rejecting democracy. The more they say such things, the more the Constitutional Court itself will be convinced that our lawsuit is well founded,” Papuashvili said.

He said that over three days, the radical opposition had tried to drag out the process by filing baseless motions, and that these parties had once again confirmed they do not recognise the constitutional order.

“We can see that, in case the Constitutional Court rules them unconstitutional, they are clearly trying to lay false groundwork in advance for the European Court of Human Rights. The public has clearly seen that they were filing entirely groundless motions. A third of the motions actually reinforce our lawsuit. They called for the recusal of individual judges and the entire bench, driven by a familiar attempt to undermine the Constitutional Court’s legitimacy. So even with these motions, they have helped our case, because they have confirmed once again that they do not recognise the constitutional order,” Papuashvili said.

The Constitutional Court has been hearing Georgian Dream’s constitutional lawsuit seeking to declare the United National Movement, the Coalition for Change, Strong Georgia – Lelo, the Federalists and Gakharia for Georgia unconstitutional and ban their activities since 21 October.