On 3 May 2019, Public Defender Nino Lomjaria and First Deputy Public Defender Tamar Gvaramadze participated in another meeting of the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership Commission Working Group on Democracy and Governance.

Participants of the meeting discussed the progress of implementation of the goals set by the working group; new challenges in the directions of elections, media, civil society, responsible and accountable government and the rule of law were identified and analyzed as well.

The Public Defender talked about the situation of democracy and human rights in Georgia and the circumstances hampering the mentioned process. Special attention was paid to the attempts of high officials to discredit representatives of the civil society last year, ineffective mechanisms against ill-treatment and the problems of wrong categorization of cases, as well as the problems of timely and objective investigation of cases of ill-treatment. The Public Defender also emphasized the importance of an independent investigative mechanism and the reforms carried out in this direction.

The Public Defender also spoke about the issues related to independence of judiciary and underlined the shortcomings in the draft law on the selection of the Supreme Court judges.

The Strategic Partnership Commission is a bilateral strategic dialogue mechanism between Georgia and the United States, which aims at deepening cooperation between the two countries and integration of Georgia into the Euro-Atlantic structures.