Georgia’s Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili has demanded an explanation from the US Embassy regarding Judge Lasha Chkhikvadze. Papuashvili commented on the information spread earlier by Nika Gvaramia, the former general director of the TV company Mtavari Arkhi that the European Court of Human Rights declined to consider his claim.
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According to Papuashvili, the decision of the Strasbourg court confirmed that Nika Gvaramia is a criminal.
"Because someone in the embassy didn't like this decision and someone had sympathies for Nika Gvaramia, this judge was sanctioned, removed from certain programs, and he and his family were attacked by the media and non-governmental organizations. Did anyone ask what his emotional state was during those days? Does anyone even care about people when they are instrumentalized like this? I am waiting for an explanation from the American embassy regarding whether the sanction against Lasha Chkhikvadze was lifted or not. Should these sanctions continue to be unfair to him? And secondly, what was the basis of the reaction of the former US ambassador when he attacked the Georgian justice system and talked about some political motivations," Papuashvili said.
The Chairman of the Parliament also criticized the representation of the European Union. According to him, the former ambassador of the European Union to Georgia, Carl Hartzell, was "wrong or lying" when he said that the verdict in the case of Nika Gvaramia was politically motivated.
"Yesterday, instead of hearing from the current ambassador of the European Union that the statement of the former ambassador misled the public, was unfair to concrete judges, was not based on facts, and discredited Georgian justice, we hear that there is a need to check the integrity of Georgian judges," noted Papuashvili.
Recently it became known that the European Court of Human Rights did not accept Nika Gvaramia's claim. The lawsuit was related to the guilty verdict of the Georgian courts in the case of Gvaramia's abuse of authority during his leadership of Rustavi 2.
The judge of the Tbilisi City Court, Lasha Chkhikvadze, who found Gvaramia guilty and sentenced him to 3 years and 6 months in prison on May 16, 2022, also responded to the decision of the European Court. According to Chkhikvadze, he does not expect that anyone will apologize.
"The decisions of the Strasbourg Court in recent years confirm that the decisions of Georgian judges are consistent with the precedent decisions of the Strasbourg Court, are legal, and fully compatible with the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. To me, this also means that the judges make their decisions independently, without any interference. The judiciary is consistently the object of bullying, blackmailing, demonizing judges, or some baseless corruption accusations. I have a request for everyone to get used to and learn to respect court decisions."
The appellate and supreme courts upheld Judge Chkhikvadze's guilty verdict. In June 2023, after one year of imprisonment, Nika Gvaramia was pardoned by the President.
