U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, Kelly Degnan, on Friday, held a meeting with the Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili.

Following the meeting, Degnan remarked to the media, saying “We came today to talk about whether there are additional ways the United States could support the Parliament’s legal reform efforts.”

“We’ve been working together very well for years on judicial reform, and we look forward to the possibility of continuing that because we know that judicial reform and fighting corruption are two of the 12 priorities that are part of Georgia acquiring candidate status later this year.

We’re very hopeful that Georgia will be able to get that positive answer in December. We also understand that there is still more work to do, as we saw from the Venice Commission’s opinion last month in March. There are still a number of steps that need to be taken to meet the judicial reform requirements, including a thorough reform of the High Council of Justice. This has been a recommendation in the past four Venice Commission opinions that have been issued. There remains a lot of work to be done to meet that requirement,” she stated.

Alluding to the question about the EU candidate status, U.S. Ambassador continued: “We feel that this is a very positive step because this is an opportunity to address allegations of corruption in the judiciary. This is an opportunity to demonstrate this government’s commitment to fighting corruption and to establishing a truly independent and impartial judiciary.”

“At the Summit for Democracy in Washington last week, Georgia, along with President Biden and over a hundred different countries, pledged to fight corruption, pledged to make protecting and promoting an independent judiciary and rule of law priorities because those are so important to a healthy functioning democracy. So we hope that the government will embrace this opportunity to address allegations of corruption, and really take meaningful steps to create an independent, impartial judiciary,” she added.