“Two days have passed, and none of the parties understands exactly what Georgian Dream is accusing them of,” Badri Japaridze, one of the leaders of Lelo – Strong Georgia, told the media following a hearing at the Constitutional Court.

According to Japaridze, all motions submitted by Lelo – Strong Georgia were “entirely logical,” but the court rejected every one of them.

“We requested that the Constitutional Court of Georgia refer the case to the European Court of Human Rights, because there has been no precedent anywhere in the world of a ruling party bringing a case before a constitutional court seeking to dissolve five major opposition parties. Accordingly, this requires an entirely new, unprecedented standard that could have been established by the European Court of Human Rights. Our request was rejected.

“We also asked for experts from the Venice Commission to be invited to assess these proceedings and the lawsuit, but that request was rejected as well. Every motion was denied.

“Two days have passed, and none of the parties understands exactly what Georgian Dream is accusing them of. We keep asking which of the allegations in this lawsuit specifically concern Lelo – Strong Georgia.

“One representative of Georgian Dream said that we were being accused of violating Article 23. Article 23 concerns incitement to ethnic hatred. Were we engaged in inciting ethnic hatred? We were told no.

“That leaves two allegations: calling for the violent overthrow of the constitutional order and violating the country’s territorial integrity. We have always opposed the violent overthrow of the constitutional order. There is also the accusation of violating the country’s territorial integrity.

“None of the offences listed in Article 23 has anything whatsoever to do with Lelo – Strong Georgia. We keep insisting that they tell us what we are being accused of, and the answer is: ‘Wait and see.’ There is nothing of the kind in the lawsuit,” Japaridze said.