A meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was held in Paris (France) on January 16, 2020. Co-rapporteurs Titus Corlatean and Claude Kern presented their views. The main focus of their assessment was the election legislation and election of Supreme Court judges.

Apart from the Members of the Parliament of Georgia, the persons invited to the Monitoring Committee meeting included the Public Defender of Georgia, who held a meeting with the CoE Co-rapporteurs in Tbilisi on September 17, 2019.

At the Monitoring Committee meeting, Deputy Public Defender of Georgia Giorgi Burjanadze presented his opinion on human rights and democratic reforms in three areas:

• Election of Supreme Court Judges – He highlighted the key challenges in the legislation in this direction. In addition, the shortcomings identified during the monitoring process (secret ballot, pre-agreed activities of the Council members, developments in the Parliament of Georgia, etc.) were discussed. The problem of internal independence of the court and existence of an influential group within the court, as well as the dangers arising from it, were particularly emphasized.
• Activities of the Prosecutor's Office of Georgia and the ongoing criminal prosecutions and investigations involving various politically active persons. The assessments made by us as a result of various criminal case studies were mentioned. Finally, the performance of the Prosecutor's Office of Georgia was reviewed and it was emphasized that a new Prosecutor General should be selected in 2020 on the basis of maximum political consensus in order to increase the low public confidence in the Prosecutor's Office.
• The third issue was the necessity of reforming the electoral system. The positive side of the proportional electoral system and the need for its timely introduction was Previous election practices, problems and systemic challenges in this regard (violent environment, hate speech, dissemination of false information, attempts to discredit election monitoring organizations on social media, use of administrative resources, etc.) were underlined. The Deputy Public Defender hopes that politicians will be able to agree on the electoral reform and take appropriate active steps in this regard. In December 2019, the Public Defender of Georgia applied to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights to submit a legal opinion on the bill drafted by the opposition. We hope that this document will help this process.

The Public Defender’s Office of Georgia will continue to actively cooperate with the CoE Monitoring Committee and Co-Rapporteurs to improve the human rights situation in Georgia.