MP Gorduladze accuses OSCE Parliamentary Assembly vice-president of pressuring Georgian judiciary

Georgian Dream MP Archil Gorduladze has accused the vice-president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly of attempting to pressure Georgia’s independent judiciary by criticising proceedings seeking to ban five opposition parties.

Speaking as chairman of the Georgian Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee, Gorduladze described the criticism as an attempt by foreign forces to protect their “agents” in Georgia and said such pressure would not influence the courts.

“It is catastrophic when the vice-president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly launches an attack against the judiciary,” Gorduladze said.

He argued that Georgia’s Constitution, national legislation and internationally recognised standards must be respected, adding that the right to bring a case before a court is guaranteed by Georgia’s Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.

“Now this official is telling us that we should not exercise a right guaranteed and protected by our Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights,” he said, describing the criticism as an attempt to exert pressure on the judiciary.

Gorduladze also accused foreign ambassadors and other officials of “repeatedly commenting” on criminal and administrative cases in Georgia, saying that some had even attended court hearings.

“Such attempts to exert pressure did not work in the past and will not work in the future,” he said.

He added that Georgian Dream would continue to speak out against what he described as the erosion of the principles on which the Council of Europe and the European Union were founded, accusing European bureaucrats of undermining those same principles.