Ambassador Degnan on “judge under pressure” allegations: we’ve made concerns quite publicly

US Ambassador Kelly Degnan once again dismissed the allegations of Tbilisi City Court judge Lasha Chkhikvadze over exercising pressure on him for a judgment in the case of the opposition-minded Mtavari channel head Nika Gvaramia.

While in the Samegrelo region on Tuesday, Degnan said that like many others over the case, she publicly expressed her concerns over the specific case.

 “We need to be able to talk about our disagreements, and we do that usually in private, which is most effective. Sometimes we speak out publicly if it is an issue that we have great concerns about, and that is what we did in this case,” said the Ambassador. 

She stated that the Embassy issued public statements expressing the United States’ concern about the timing and the charges involved in the case, along with the Georgian Public Defender, a number of NGOs, and a number of other international friends of Georgia “who had the same concerns.”

“So this is not something that was done in secret. This was done quite publicly, and it is quite a normal thing to have happened – this is standard practice,” Degnan said.

She stated that the US  had spent a long time working with Georgia’s judiciary, building capacity, trying to improve the professionalism, the transparency, and the independence of the judicial system.

“That has involved a lot of exchanges between United States experts and Georgian judges, prosecutors, and attorneys. Again, these are routine meetings that happen all the time, and if people want to mischaracterize them or spin them up into more than what they are, which is just routine meetings, that is obviously for their own purposes.

“ Our exchange programs have sent over 6,000 Georgians on exchange programs for a variety of reasons: educational, cultural, and judicial. They are open to anyone who is qualified, available, and open to benefiting from the purpose of these exchanges, which is to meet with American counterparts, exchange views, learn from each other, and then bring that back to Georgia,” Degnan stated.

Judge Chkhikvadze said that he was removed from the Embassy-funded programmme and his US trip was canceled following his verdict last month, which sent Gvaramia to three years and six months in prison for abuse of power while chairing another TV channel Rustavi 2.