The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) has already submitted for the third time an amicus curiae opinion to the Constitutional Court on the constitutional complaint of members of the Parliament of Georgia.

This information is disseminated by the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association.

According to them, the document analyzes the existing international standards regarding the extreme form of restriction of freedom of association and the national legislative framework.

“This complaint represents a declaration by the ruling party that it does not merely wish to see one particular party out of the opposition, but that its intention is to ban all those parties to which the citizens of Georgia gave a mandate to be in opposition. Through the Constitutional Court of Georgia, ‘Georgian Dream’ is attempting to ban opposition political parties, including all those political parties that crossed the 5-percent threshold in the parliamentary elections of 26 October 2024.

In the parliamentary elections of 26 October 2024, the coalition ‘For Change – Gvaramia, Melia, Girchi, Droa’, ‘Unity – National Movement’, ‘Strong Georgia – Lelo, For the People, For Freedom’ and the party ‘Gakharia for Georgia’ together received 784,830 votes of Georgian citizens. Satisfaction of the complaint by the Constitutional Court would be equivalent to depriving 37.79% of the voters who participated in the elections of their electoral vote. This complaint represents a blow to pluralistic, multi-party democracy because it eliminates not one single party that enjoys significant public support, but all parties to which the population of Georgia expressed support in the last parliamentary elections.

Militant democracy, as a concept that the plaintiff side has repeatedly mentioned in the complaint, represents the idea of a democratic system that is prepared to use preventive illiberal measures in order to protect itself from anti-democratic forces that attempt to destroy its fundamental principles by using democratic mechanisms themselves. The purpose of this theoretical framework is the self-defence of the democratic order against threats coming from within; however, its operation acquires meaning only when the political system itself retains a democratic nature. If a regime loses its democratic character and uses the concept of militant democracy against political opponents, the theoretical framework of militant democracy loses its foundation and turns into a legal instrument of politically motivated repression.

The consideration of the issue of banning political parties in Georgia is taking place in an essentially severe political context characterized by: the concentration of power in the hands of one party, the gradual erosion of the principles of democratic pluralism, the systematic harassment of opposition political parties and autonomous civic spaces, as well as the instrumentalization of the legal framework for narrow party interests. It is noteworthy that ‘Georgian Dream’ is attempting to ban all opposition parties that enjoy public support, regardless of what path of political struggle they have chosen – whether or not they declared a boycott permissible in a democratic society, whether or not they continue political activity in parliament and local councils. ‘Georgian Dream’ is attempting to destroy all of them indiscriminately.

GYLA considers that the goal of banning opposition parties is not the protection of the democratic constitutional order, but the elimination of political competition and the retention of power by the ruling party. It is inadmissible, in the name of protecting democracy, to destroy those political alternatives whose existence is itself a necessary condition of democracy.

It is the responsibility of the Constitutional Court to protect the constitutional order, the foundation of which is not the unrestricted rule of any party, but respect for the will of the voters, political diversity and the possibility of the democratic alternation of power,” – is stated in the information.