Kobakhidze: "Georgian Dream will properly implement its plan for implementing EU recommendations"

Irakli Kobakhidze, the Chair of Georgian Dream, said that the ruling team had submitted a solid plan for putting the European Commission's 12 recommendations into action as soon as possible.

He confirmed that the group conformed completely to all timeframes specified in its plan. "By early December, all improvements should be completed," he added. "Some draft laws, such as those regarding parliamentary monitoring of the implementation of ECHR judgments and election reform, have already been created," Kobakhidze stated. According to Kobakhidze, most reforms should be finished by the beginning of December. There are still two and a half months left.

Georgia receives $11.5 million in military aid from the United States

On September 22, the US Embassy in Georgia declared that it had given the Georgian Defense Ministry military hardware and ammunition valued at USD 11.5 million. 

The Embassy stated, "This is only one way the US supports our strategic cooperation with Georgia." 

At the beginning of September, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Ukraine. While there, he announced that the Biden administration would give Ukraine and 18 of its neighbors, including NATO members and other regional security partners, USD 2 billion in long-term foreign military financing.

European Court of Human Rights Rules on Makarashvili and Others v. Georgia Case 

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which has its headquarters in Strasbourg, decided the case "Makarashvili and Others v. Georgia." Petitioners alleged that their rights to a fair trial and freedom of assembly were violated during the November 18, 2019, protest. 

Giorgi Makarashvili, Zuka Berdzenishvili, and Irakli Kacharava, three activists, claimed that the European Convention on Human Rights Articles 6 (right to a fair trial) and 11 (freedom of assembly and association) had been violated by their arrest during a protest and subsequent conviction for the administrative offense of defying a police officer's lawful orders. In court, Eduard Marikashvili, the director of the Georgian Democracy Initiative, a local monitor for human rights, defended their rights. 

In a decision dated September 1, the European Court of Human Rights determined that neither Makarashvili nor Berdzenishvili's rights had been violated. About Kacharava, the court found that both Articles 6 and 11 of the Convention were broken. According to the Strasbourg court's decision, Georgia must reimburse Kacharava for non-economic damages in the amount of EUR 1,600. 

According to Article 11, the European Court made it clear that the Georgian government had not shown that the November 18 gathering had been planned with violence in mind, had sparked violence, or had already descended into violence when the decision to detain the applicants had been made. The court emphasized that the logic used by domestic courts does not support this. 

The court emphasized, however, that the disputed group blockaded the Parliament building and intended to hinder the legislative process, as acknowledged by the applicants. 

Even though Makarashvili and Brdzenishvili neither committed violent acts nor incited others to do so, the court finds that "the complete obstruction of the entrances to the Parliament's building and later of the police efforts to reopen those entrances, in blatant disregard of the domestic legislation, of the multiple warnings given to them, and of the needs and rights of the democratically elected members of Parliament to discharge their functions, was a violation of the domestic legislation." 

Regarding Kacharava, the court observed that the evidence from within the country did not show that he was one of the protest organizers or that he blocked either the gates to the Parliament building or the police attempted to remove them. 

The court emphasized that Kacharava had been denied the right to a fair trial, in contrast to Makarashvili and Berdzenishvili, and that this infringement had occurred. 

The Court acknowledged that the legitimate goals of avoiding disruption and preserving public safety were served by the applicants' detention and subsequent conviction for the administrative offense of defying legal directions.