Zaza Bibilashvili: GD has already overthrown constitutional order in Georgia

Zaza Bibilashvili, a representative of the United National Movement (UNM), has criticized a constitutional lawsuit seeking to ban opposition parties, calling its argument that the parties seek punishment of the Georgian state by foreign countries a “legal nonsense.”

“On page 29 of the lawsuit, we read: ‘These political parties seek to have the Georgian state and the Georgian government punished from abroad on various issues.’ This is a fairly banal trick included in the lawsuit, and it is, in itself, a legal nonsense,” Bibilashvili said at the Constitutional Court.

He said the lawsuit conflated two fundamentally different things: the Georgian Dream ruling party, which can legitimately be opposed through political competition, and the Georgian state itself.

“This confusion is standard practice for Georgian Dream, something we hear practically every day, including from the representatives of the plaintiff during these proceedings and from those who signed the lawsuit. The same logic is applied to the claim that a change of government — the legitimate goal of every genuine opposition party — is equivalent to overthrowing the constitutional order and changing it by force,” Bibilashvili said.

He argued that this approach also portrays criticism of Georgian Dream by Georgia’s foreign friends as an attack on the country, while characterizing the political activities of the domestic opposition as sabotage.

Bibilashvili further claimed that, according to numerous observers and local and international reports, Georgian Dream had already undermined the constitutional order in Georgia and that the state had been captured by one individual holding dual citizenship.

“I am citing reports, and there are many such reports. They provide the grounds for these conclusions; this is not a political statement. I am citing material that objectively substantiates them. For example, Transparency International has published numerous reports on this matter. We will specify these in detail when we submit our written arguments,” Bibilashvili said.