The United States Embassy denounced the Georgian parliament’s failure to approve constitutional amendments aimed to ensure ‘broad, multi-party support for an impartial prosecutor general’.
This, the U.S. Embassy says, is ‘another missed opportunity to increase the independence, transparency and integrity of Georgia’s judiciary’.
"We take note of opposition leaders’ comments that they were unable to support this important amendment to the Prosecutor General appointment process in order to retain the ruling party’s votes for the other important Constitutional amendments called for in the April 19 Agreement, which pertain to fully proportional elections, a two percent threshold, and factions”, the statement of the U.S. embassy reads.
"Georgian Dream’s refusal to support the Prosecutor General amendment contradicts the party’s July 28 reiteration of its commitment to implement the judicial reforms and adopt the Constitutional amendments laid out in the April 19 Agreement. This is yet another broken promise by the ruling party to make the much-needed judicial reforms that Georgian Dream and opposition party leaders have pledged, of their own accord, to adopt”, it also adds.
Noting that ‘the people of Georgia deserve an impartial, independent judiciary that is not used for political purposes’, the U.S. embassy says that ‘with an impartial judicial system, the public can have confidence that election results will be upheld fairly, business disputes will be resolved without favoritism, and political opponents will not be targeted unjustly for prosecution’.
"Those qualified professionals in the Prosecutor’s Office, and the court system more broadly, should be allowed to uphold the law without political pressure. The Constitutional amendment reforming the appointment process for the Prosecutor General would have been an important step toward that goal”, the statement further reads.
The US called on all parties to redouble their efforts to work together in parliament to implement key reforms to the judicial system, Agenda.ge reported.
