NGOs Request Transparent Process of Selecting Justices

The under-signatory organizations appeal to the High Council of Justice (HCJ) to ensure transparency of the ongoing selection process of justices and ensure attendance of interested parties in the interview process. Large-scale selection process of justices is undergoing at the High Council of Justice. The competition was announced for 61 vacant places of judges in the first instance and appeal courts of Georgia. In accordance to the rule of selecting justices, the documents submitted by the applicants shall be reviewed in the first stage and the candidates, who pass the first stage, will be interviewed by the HCJ on the second stage of the competition.

Ongoing selection process of justices in the HCJ has become subject of high public interest because the competition was announced for dozens of vacant positions and selected judges will be appointed to the positions for life term. Thus, high public interest is quite legitimate and society has right to receive full information about the ongoing selection process and decisions of the HCJ members.

Judiciary system has low trust among Georgian society. People have serious questions about the decisions made by several judges. However, part of the judges still has desire to continue their careers in the judiciary system. In similar conditions it is regretful that procedures and negative practice of appointing, promotion or transfer of judges by the HCJ has often become subject of serious critic.

The list of applicant judges was published on the website of the HCJ on October 28, 2015. The HCJ has not yet published bios of the candidates. As for the schedule of interviews with them, it was published a day before the process started that demonstrates that the Council continues negative practice of late informing the society.

Considering the scope and significance of the ongoing selection process for the establishment of independent and impartial court, as well as high public interest in it, past negative practice of appointing judges, we call on the High Council of Justice of Georgia: to conduct the competition process in open, transparent and impartial manner, to ensure that society assessed the process as unbiased and transparent and to select only qualified and honorable candidates, whose reputations have never been questioned. To meet abovementioned requirements the HCJ shall:

• Publish bios of all applicants participating in the ongoing competition in accordance to the Article 44 of the General Administrative Code of Georgia, which requires freedom of information about the candidates of any public positions;

• Publish information about date and time of interviews with the candidates at least 7 days before the scheduled interviews as it is required by the law;

• Interview the candidates during open session of the HCJ in accordance to the established practice;

• Open interview sessions for media coverage;

• Take all measures to avoid interest conflict in the HCJ. To achieve that, the HCJ secretary, as well as all candidates, shall be derived from the selection and decision making process about candidates;

• Consider and discuss the information about concrete judges provided in the public statement of the Public Defender of Georgia before makes decision on appointing judges.

Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA)

Transparency International – Georgia (TIG)

Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC)

Article 42 of the Constitution

Human Rights Center (HRIDC)

Institute for Development and Freedom of Information (IDFI)

Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF)