The Public Defender of Georgia calls on the Parliament of Georgia to fulfill the preconditions relating to the judicial reform for obtaining candidate status for EU membership. Until the reform working group has not completed its work, there is still an opportunity to implement fundamental reforms of the judicial system, and this chance must necessarily be used.

About 3 months have passed since the Legal Issues Committee of the Parliament of Georgia set up a judicial reform working group in order to fulfill the preconditions established by the European Union for granting Georgia candidate status. So far, 4 meetings have been held and as we know, another summary meeting is scheduled for the near future. The work to be carried out within the group was defined from the beginning in two directions: 1) legislative changes and 2) judicial reform strategy and action plan. By this time, the Legal Issues Committee has already completed its work on the strategy and action plan, and the final document has already been posted on the website of the Parliament.

The Public Defender has submitted recommendations in writing twice within the framework of the group, and her representatives were actively involved in each meeting, during which they expressed and substantiated their opinions orally. Despite the lengthy discussions held within the working group, we still do not know whether the following issues laid down in the EU documents[1] have been considered: the substantive reform of the High Council of Justice, aimed at increasing its transparency, integrity and accountability; improvement in the case allocation system and complete exclusion of influences in this process; bringing legislation in line with the Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR recommendations, etc. In addition, we are not aware of whether the reforms mentioned in the so-called 19 April agreement signed by the mediation of the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, have been taken account, in particular, the introduction of merit-based selection during the appointment of judges in the court of first instance and the court of appeals, in-depth reform of the High Council of Justice, evaluation of the effectiveness of the judicial reform waves, etc. Until now, the issues raised by us have not been positively resolved: decision-making in the High Council of Justice by the principle of double majority (with the support of 2/3 of judge members and 2/3 of non- judge members); election of the court chairman (collegium, chamber) by the judges of the same court; repeal of the December 2021 changes, which greatly weakened the legal remedies for judges, etc. Our recommendation that the final decision on disputed issues should be taken by the Parliament after hearing the opinions of the Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR has not been taken into account either.

As we see in the judicial reform strategy and action plan posted on the website, none of our recommendations, which did not require legislative changes, has been taken into account. In particular, they are:

• The need to supervise the enforcement of reforms already implemented in the field of justice;
• The need to strengthen the implementation of the existing legal framework in the direction of property status declaration of judges;
• The need for changes in the rule of electronic allocation of cases, which will ensure the random selection of all three members of the collegium in the common courts;
• The need to ensure equal, proportional workload of judges;
• The need to reflect part of the recommendations, which were issued by the OSCE/ODIHR in August 2021, in the judicial reform strategy and action plan;
• The need to develop detailed rules and criteria for electing an independent inspector.

In addition, we had pointed out that it was important to provide the draft judicial reform strategy and action plan to judges of the common courts so that they had the opportunity to express their opinion, which did not happen either.

Article 78 of the Constitution of Georgia stipulates that "Constitutional bodies shall take all measures within their powers to ensure the full integration of Georgia into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization." Accordingly, the Parliament of Georgia is obliged to fulfill the preconditions that the European Union has determined for Georgia to be granted the status of a candidate country.

Based on Article 78 of the Constitution of Georgia, the Public Defender of Georgia calls on the Parliament of Georgia to take into account the recommendations of the Public Defender, civil society and Georgia's partner countries in order to solve problems in the justice system and ensure the right to a fair trial in the country.

[1] Available at: < https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/opinion-georgias-application-membership-european-union_en >