The Georgian parliament has the obligation and responsibility under the constitution and the April 19th Agreement to pause the process of appointment of judges, said Kelly Degnan, US Ambassador to Georgia.

According to the US Ambassador, Georgian political leaders made the commitment to pause the appointing process by signing and negotiating the April 19th Agreement until the reforms were enacted. They also agreed to have a robust debate about judicial reform.

“A deal is a deal. They negotiated this deal and they agreed to pause this process until a fulsome debate about judicial reforms had. Georgia’s constitution clearly states that the judiciary shall be independent. That is a very serious commitment and a promise to the Georgian people. The constitution provides most of the procedures and processes for ensuring an independent judiciary are made through common laws, the law on common courts, and other laws that are within the purview of the parliament to enact and adjust.

The parliament now has the obligation and the responsibility under the constitution and under the April 19th Agreement to pause this appointment process to ensure that there is a debate, to ensure that there is an assessment of previous reforms — that is also provided for the April 19th Agreement — so that Georgians can be confident that their judiciary as strong and as independent as the constitution requires.

I think that this is a responsibility that I hope the members of parliament take very seriously. As I have said before, there have been independent assessments that concluded that it will not bring the system to a crashing halt to pause this process.

There are sufficient judges in place to allow for a thorough review what kind of additional reforms would strengthen and improve Georgia’s judiciary. That is all anybody is talking about that here and that is what the parties committed to do in the agreement they negotiated,” Kelly Degnan said.