At the session held in the Constitutional Court of Georgia, Irakli Kobakhidze, the chairman of the ruling party Georgian Dream, said that the ultimate goal of the impeachment is to depose Salome Zourabichvili from presidency.
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‘’Initiating the impeachment procedure is a political decision. In 2022, we also made a political statement that the President of Georgia violated the Constitution of Georgia. She applied to the government in April 2022, if I'm not mistaken, to get approval for the visits, was refused, and went anyway, although we did not take this step [impeachment] then, due to the fact that at some point she changed this practice and stopped violating the constitution. She was undergoing consultations and even got consent for certain visits. However, the political decision was made only after the President's violation of the Constitution of Georgia acquired a systemic character.
Our initiating impeachment means that we no longer deem Salome Zourabichvili worthy of presidency.
Said Kobakhidze in the Constitutional Court, where the consideration of the President's impeachment submissions was resumed. Judge Eva Gotsiridze asked Kobakhidze what was the motivation of Georgian Dream for starting the impeachment procedure.
‘’We said from the beginning that we are not expecting 100 votes. We reasonably assume that Ms. Salome Zourabichvili was violating the Constitution of Georgia in the hope of gaining support from the opposition. In the event that the Constitutional Court presents a positive verdict to the Parliament regarding the violation of the Constitution by the president, all relevant deputies will support the impeachment of the President. This is our political intention,’’ said Kobakhidze.
He also explained that the start of the impeachment procedure has a legal motive in addition to the political one, so that the Constitutional Court can confirm that the existing system is a parliamentary one, where the President of Georgia cannot assume the exclusive powers of the Government of Georgia.
‘’Your decision will have a precedential value. If we theoretically assume that you do not support this submission, the system of parliamentary governance will be turned upside down,’’ Kobakhidze addressed the judges.
Part of the parliamentary opposition considers the initiation of the impeachment procedure of the president as an artificial obstacle to the country's European integration and sabotage and does not support it.
The Constitutional Court will prepare a verdict on the impeachment of the President by mid-October. If the court rules that the president has violated the constitution, the vote of 100 members of the parliament is needed to unseat the president, which Georgian Dream comes short of. Part of the parliamentary opposition considers the initiation of the impeachment procedure of the president as an artificial obstacle to the country's European integration and sabotage and does not support it.
