Before someone mentions the word “vetting,” they should first apologize to Georgian justice, Lasha Chkhikvadze, and the other judges who have faced moral and disinformationalpressure together with their families for years; once that has been done, we can talk about the judiciary, Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili stated.

As the Chairman of the Parliament noted, if anyone has any arguments regarding the systemic problems of Georgian justice, they should say so. According to him, no one can provide convincing arguments about the presence of a systemic problem in Georgian justice.

“Time has shown that since 2015, the cases of Rustavi 2, Melia, Saakashvili, and now the case of Gvaramia all demonstrate that in every instance we were dealing with an orchestrated attack involving foreign donors, the NGOs funded by them, and the National Movement, which attacked Georgian justice in concert. Over the years, they created the perception that there are systemic problems in this manner. Today, they come and tell us that although they do not have supporting arguments, such a perception exists nonetheless, and then they cite as a witness the discrediting campaign that they themselves are running. And then the Georgian people are supposed to provide an answer. If anyone has any arguments regarding the systemic problems of Georgian justice, they should say so. Why is no one saying anything? Millions of both open and closed meetings have taken place between the Georgian NGOs, the opposition, and foreigners. I assure the Georgian people that no one has been able to provide any convincing arguments about the systemic problem in Georgian justice at any of these meetings. On the contrary, every time those embassies, donors, NGOs, and the opposition attacked not just the justice system but specific judges as well, they turned out to have been in the wrong.They were targeting Lasha Chkhikvadze and tried to destroy him morally – European and American money was spent on this. When we talk about European standards, is it the standard whereby EU citizens’ money is spent on the moral destruction of a person? Today, no one even deigns to apologize. Before someone mentions the word “vetting,” they should first apologize to Georgian justice, Lasha Chkhikvadze, and the other judges who have faced moral and disinformational pressure together with their families for years; once that has been done, we can talk about the judiciary,” Shalva Papuashvili stated.