The presence of ambassadors at court hearings has only one purpose, which is to exert on the Georgian judiciary and intimidate judges, - said the Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia, Shalva Papuashvili.

According to him, this action of embassy representatives is a disrespect for Georgia's sovereignty.

"We have recently seen ambassadors attending court hearings. Yesterday we saw that the ambassador of Lithuania was present at the court hearing. The ambassador of a country that sanctioned several judges, including almost the entire Constitutional Court. This ambassador then goes to the court hearing and sits with judges whom his government sanctions. They [ambassadors] are neither lawyers, nor do they understand Georgian, and I don't think they would have a translator there to translate quickly enough to extract any content from that process, or they could have obtained this information in other ways. The presence of ambassadors at court hearings has only one purpose, which is to exert pressure on the Georgian judiciary and intimidate judges. This is a demonstration, they are watching the jusges, and if they don't behave as they want (and they say what they want publicly), punishment will follow. This is such a gross violation of the rules-based international order – this is what Russia is being accused of, when one country does not respect the sovereignty of another country, and they themselves do not respect the sovereignty of Georgia. This is precisely the disrespect for Georgia’s sovereignty when embassy representatives attend court proceedings in order to put pressure on the Georgian judiciary,” Papuashvili noted.

In addition, Papuashvili, speaking to journalists, responded to a statement issued by the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which states that “Belgium calls on the Georgian government to respect the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression.”

According to Papuashvili, the position of the Belgian government became known to them from the resolution of the European Parliament, when, according to him, “their representatives supported the release of criminals from prisons.”

“There is no democracy without the rule of law. Perhaps the rule of law is not as important to them in other countries as in their own countries, and this became even more apparent when the representatives of the Belgian government in the European Parliament ([I mean], the representatives of the ruling party) supported a resolution demanding the release of the criminal Saakashvili and also demanding the designation of the criminal Kezerashvili as a media guru. The position of the Belgian government is known to us from the resolution of the European Parliament, where their representatives supported the release of criminals from prisons. So this shows their attitude towards the rule of law in other countries. It seems that some authorities do not care about the rule of law, democracy, elections for the Georgian people. It seems that some of them think that we do not have the right to have law and order and legislation," Papuashvili said.