Georgia: Support for the Independence, Accountability and Efficiency of the Judiciary in Georgia

Details: Published: June 1, 2018

Conference as part of the EU project “Support to the Independence, Accountability and Efficiency of the Judiciary”: Prof. Dr. Nino Gvenetadze, President of the Supreme Court; Thea Tsulukiani, Minister of Justice of Georgia; Renate Winter, Project Team Leader (from left to right)

EU-Technical-Assistance-Project

Support to the Independence, Accountability and Efficiency of the Judiciary in Georgia
October 2016 – June 2021
IRZ Juniorpartner
Budget: 2 Mio. Euro

Since October 2016, the IRZ has been a partner in another EU-funded contract in Georgia. During the 41-month contract period, the consortium, led by the consulting company Human Dynamics (HD), is supporting the Supreme Court, the High Judicial Council, the High School of Justice, the Constitutional Court and various courts in increasing the independence, efficiency and impartiality of Georgian judiciary. In terms of content, the project partly follows on from the project “Support to the Reform of the Criminal Justice System in Georgia” (2012-2015), which was also completed successfully by the IRZ and HD.

The IRZ is involved intensively in the project through the assignment of short-term experts, but above all through its Georgian long-term expert with a focus on European human rights standards. This expert has already conducted various seminars and workshops for judges and other court staff. In terms of content, the issues discussed included cases of importance for Georgia under the ECHR as well as EU law. However, practical assistance was also offered for day-to-day legal research and the optimisation of legal terminology for the writing of judgments. The work of the IRZ expert – together with the Human Rights Department within the Supreme Court – has made considerable progress in developing a database containing important ECHR rulings. Some of these were also translated into the Georgian language. This is how the understanding of the importance of the ECHR in Georgia is to be further augmented and, at the same time, the ability to apply these standards in a competent manner is to be increased.

Together with the High Council of Justice, the project also developed a comprehensive strategy for judicial reform from 2017 to 2022 as well as an action plan for its implementation for 2017 and 2018, including seminars to enhance the efficiency of the judiciary, joint events for the judiciary and the legal profession, and workshops on public finance management.