Lawsuit Initiated by Human Rights Center Upheld

Natia Gogolashvili

The representatives of Human Rights Centre held a press conference on May 29. They evaluated the judgment of the Georgian Constitutional Court on the claim initiated by Human Rights Center. The claim of Human Rights Center was prepared in 2012 on non-compliance of formation rules for majoritarian electoral system with the Constitution. 

“This decision confirmed that the existing electoral system is inaccurate. Human Rights Centre and other partner NGOs have been talking about this issue for a long time. We request the government to timely start working on changing the existing electoral system. Important steps shall be made regarding the legislative changes as well as for voters’ awareness raising. We, together with other NGOs, have signed the memorandum of civil consent, where we appeal to the government to change the existing election system”,- executive director of Human Rights Centre, Aleko Tskitishvili said. 

Human Rights Centre has monitored Parliamentary Elections of October 1, 2012. During this process, the system problem of Election Law was outlined. That time executive director of Human Rights Centre Ucha Nanuashvili and the organizatio’s lawyer, constitutionalist Mikheil Sharashidze lodged constitutional claim to the Constitutional Court on December 4, 2012. 

“According to the constitutional claim, the fact, that there are huge differences between registered voters in single mandate electoral districts, is deemed as irrelevant with the Principle of Equality provided by article 14 of the Georgian Constitution. For example, in #29 single mandate majoritarian election district of Khazbegi the MP is elected by 5,810 voters, while in #3 election district of Saburtalo one MP is elected by 128,545 voters. Thus, the vote of electors in Khazbegi district is 22 times weightier than the votes of those registered in Saburtalo district. Thus the principle of equality, including principle of voters’ equality and equal voting, guaranteed by the Constitution of Georgia, is breached, which is discrimination of voters by their place of residence,”- states the lawyer of Human Rights Centre, Nestan Londaridze. 

According to the executive director of Human Rights Centre, it is necessary that government supported creating multiparty format of negotiation in order to initiate new election system as a result of a discussion.