Kakha Tsikarishvili, a member of the group of independent lawyers, responded to the Tbilisi City Court's decision to suspend his appointment as a non-judge member of the Supreme Council of Justice.
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Tsikarishvili anticipated that some measures would be taken against him.
"My term of office was set to start tomorrow. I had already prepared a work plan and public statements. I intended to focus on the clan system and explain to the public how it operates and how this clan is managed, but from the perspective of a member of the Supreme Council of Justice. My work plan included a thorough examination of the issues within the judicial system and informing the public.
Currently, an outside observer lacks the necessary leverage to investigate further, whereas a member of the Justice Council would have access to extensive information. I believe the system was apprehensive about that. The system feared my statements and the prospect of my gaining access to a lot of information that is not publicly available, so they took measures to prevent it," said Kakha Tsikarishvili.
The court suspended the effect of the presidential decree appointing Kakha Tsikarishvili on July 22. This decision was based on a lawsuit filed the same day by Manuchar Kakochashvili, one of the participants in the selection competition for a member of the Supreme Council of Justice. Kakha Tsikarishvili noted that the court made the decision just a few hours after the lawsuit was filed, which raises doubts.
"Everybody knows that delays in the court system are a significant problem - cases can drag on for years or months. The fact that a decision was made within a few hours after the filing of the application is, I think, a very rare occurrence, if not the only one. This raises doubts about whether the judge had a vested interest in the outcome, and whether the system as a whole was interested in the result.
Regarding the lawsuit, as far as I know, it claims that two members of the commission were biased. The focus is on Nona Kurdovanidze and Beso Loladze. The lawsuit asserts that these two members were biased and that the commission did not ask me questions about my qualifications, whereas it did question him and some other candidates," Tsikarishvili said in an interview with Mtavari Arkhi.
The Tbilisi City Court approved Manuchar Kakochashvili's petition, prohibiting the President from holding a new competition or appointing another member to the Supreme Council of Justice until the case is fully resolved.
The President's parliamentary secretary, Giorgi Mskhiladze, described the court's decision as "unprecedented" and labeled it as "another proof of the clan rule within the court, where even one dissenting opinion is unacceptable in the Supreme Council of Justice."
