Nika Gvaramia, the founder of the Ahali political party and the TV company Mtavari Arkhi, is planning to appeal to the UN Human Rights Committee following the European Court of Human Rights' refusal to consider his lawsuit.
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"This is not a case where I will stop; I will consider the Strasbourg court as the highest instance of truth. I will appeal to a quasi-judicial instance of wider coverage and higher standing: the UN Human Rights Committee.
This is a situation where the case has not been appealed in Strasbourg. It is unfortunate that such a decision was made by a single judge without entering into a substantive review, which means that the case was not actually heard and was rejected at the admissibility stage. However, this is not a problem. This case will be considered in reality, in full, and I am sure that the decision will be as it should be, as this case deserves," said Gvaramia.
According to him, in the practice of the UN Human Rights Committee, "there are many cases where the decision of Strasbourg is completely ignored, and conclusions of other content are reached."
On May 16, 2022, Tbilisi City Court judge Lasha Chkhikvadze sentenced Nika Gvaramia to 3 years and 6 months in prison. He was found guilty of abuse of authority during his tenure at Rustavi 2 TV station (episode 2).
On November 2 of the same year, the panel of the Court of Appeal, composed of judges Merab Jorbenadze, Lavrenti Maglakelidze, and Davit Mamiseishvili, partially changed the verdict of the first instance. In particular, Nika Gvaramia was convicted for using a car belonging to Rustavi 2 for personal purposes. According to the verdict of the Tbilisi City Court, he was fined 50 thousand GEL for the second episode of the accusation, which involved causing damage to Rustavi 2 in the amount of 6 763 509 GEL. The Court of Appeal sentenced him to prison for this episode as well.
In June 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal. Following this, President Salome Zourabihvili pardoned Nika Gvaramia.
Gvaramia appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, but it recently became known that the court did not accept his claim for consideration. According to the chairman of the parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, this decision proves that Nika Gvaramia is a criminal.
