President selects former MP, judge to defend her rights in Constitutional Court over impeachment

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili on Tuesday said she had selected Tamar Chugoshvili, a former MP of the ruling party who earlier worked in the civil sector, and Maia Kopaleishvili, a former judge in the Constitutional Court, to defend her rights in the court amid impeachment procedures initiated by the ruling Georgian Dream party for her unauthorized EU trip last month. 

 

The party claimed the President had violated the country’s constitution through her visits abroad to “facilitate” the country’s obtaining the European Union membership candidate status later this year without the Government’s consent. 

 

Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said last month the party was “forced” to launch the procedures to “ensure the protection of the country’s main law”, and added he had rejected  the President’s foreign trips due to her latest claims that the current Government was only “formally fulfilling” the EU candidacy conditions and was in rivalry with the West. 

 

Garibashvili said such statements could harm the country’s EU aspirations and that Zourabichvili could hamper the country’s receiving the status with such an attitude during her foreign meetings. 

 

Chugoshvili, a former chair of Georgia’s Young Lawyers Association, represented the ruling party in the ninth convocation of the Parliament and left the party in 2019 following the GD’s breaking its pledge to hold the 2020 elections with a fully proportional electoral system. 

 

Kopaleishvili held the position of judge in the Constitutional Court for a period of 10 years from December 2009.