The panel of the Tbilisi Court of Appeal, comprising Dimitri Gvritishvili, Davit Akhalbedashvili, and Gocha Didava, upheld the complaint of the Central Election Commission and annulled the decision of Tetritskaro judge Vladimer Khuchua, which had previously voided the results from 30 precincts in the Tetritskaro and Tsalka districts due to violations of vote secrecy.
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"The appeals of the N25 Tsalka District Election Commission and the N26 Tetritskaro District Election Commission should be granted. The November 4, 2024, decision of the magistrate court of the Tetritskaro District Court in the Tsalka municipality should be annulled, and a new decision adopted," announced the chairman of the session, Judge Davit Akhalbedashvili, in the resolution.
The appellate court did not uphold the appeal of the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA), which sought to annul the results of all 1293 technological election precincts in Eastern Georgia.
"We expected this outcome, but it does not change the fact that the principle of vote secrecy was disregarded during the hearings. This was the responsibility of the Central Election Commission, which it failed to uphold. This is a fact. Regardless of the court's decision, a large part of Georgia's population - two million people - knows from personal experience that their votes were not kept confidential and understands that the court refused to deliver justice," said Nona Kurdovanidze, Chairperson of GYLA.
She believes that the Tbilisi Court of Appeal coordinated with the Kutaisi Court of Appeal, which made the same decision yesterday. "The judicial system decided not to allow any dissenting opinions on these issues," Kurdovanidze noted.
The appellate court proceedings continued uninterrupted for nearly 24 hours. The court consolidated 12 cases from GYLA, which challenged the validity of all technological precincts in Eastern Georgia, with 14 complaints from the observation organization coalition My Vote regarding the annulment of results in approximately 150 precincts, into a single proceeding.
The panel of judges denied all petitions submitted by non-governmental organizations, including requests to remove Judge Gvritishvili and to separate the cases. Furthermore, the court accepted the CEC’s petition to exclude an experiment conducted in the Tetritskaro court as evidence. Instead, the court conducted its experiment to assess whether a voter’s choice was visible when the ballot was fed into the counting machine. After the participation of CEC employees, the session chairman, Judge Davit Akhalbedashvili, also took part in the experiment. According to the GYLA lawyer, everyone observed his choice, yet Judge Gvritishvili dismissed this evidence.
