The greatest insult is when their [“Georgian Dream’s”] leader declares that only a few days remain until the abolition of the parties — tell me, what greater insult to the Constitutional Court can there be than this? — one of the leaders of “Lelo – Strong Georgia,” Badri Japaridze, stated at the session of the Constitutional Court.

As Badri Japaridze noted, the verdict on the issue of the ban of the parties has already been delivered in advance and the plenary is being completely ignored.

“We have again seen the continuation of the manipulation that ‘Georgian Dream’ is conducting in connection with this case. The greatest insult is when their leader declares that only a few days remain until the abolition of the parties — tell me, what greater insult to the Constitutional Court can there be than this? This is an enormous insult precisely to your competence, your authority, when the leader of the party says that the parties have only a few days of existence left, that is, he has delivered the verdict and you are being completely ignored,” Badri Japaridze stated.

The Chairman of the Constitutional Court, Revaz Nadaraia, responded to Japaridze.

“Mr. Badri, we cannot assess the statements of politicians. The assessment of the statements of politicians that have not been made in the courtroom… in various interviews every side makes a very large number of statements,” Nadaraia stated.

After this, Badri Japaridze told him that this is an attempt to influence them, that is, the judges, to which for his part the Chairman of the Court noted in response that the judges do not come under influence.

“No one will ever place us under any influence. No attempt [at influence] has taken place and no one will ever place us under it; know this,” the Chairman of the Constitutional Court noted.

After this, Badri Japaridze explained what the motivation of “Lelo’s” motion is. According to him, there is no precedent for the demand to abolish five political organizations together.

“The main motivator of this motion here is that a similar precedent does not exist in the world — for five political organizations completely unconnected with each other; in any case, ‘Lelo – Strong Georgia’ was created at the end of 2019. It has no connection with any other political organization either in terms of its founding or in terms of its history. There is no precedent for the demand to abolish five political organizations together — not only for the abolition, but there is no precedent for the demand. Therefore, the standard of conformity of this demand with the European Convention should be determined. The main motivator of our motion is that it is completely unprecedented. At the same time there exists such a practice that it is possible to address the European Court of Human Rights for consultation; in this case, completely justifiably the Constitutional Court of Georgia. Our main motivator is that this court should determine by what standard the Constitutional Court of Georgia should be guided in the case of the conformity of the demand for the abolition of 5 parties with the European Convention,” Badri Japaridze stated.

This explanation of Badri Japaridze was responded to by the plaintiff side, member of “Georgian Dream” Archil Gorduladze.

“Mr. Japaridze said absolutely correctly that there does not exist such an example of the abolition and discussion of five parties in one process. Yes, that is so, but unfortunately there also does not exist that five parties together, closely connected, trample underfoot Article 23 of the Constitution of Georgia,” Archil Gorduladze stated.

The Chairman of the Court responded to this statement of Gorduladze.

“Come, Mr. Archil, I thought you were saying something in connection with the motion…” Revaz Nadaraia noted.