The Temporary Investigative Commission of the Parliament, established in February 2025, was an illegal mechanism created by “Georgian Dream” to destroy opposition parties and eliminate pluralistic democracy in the country.

The Commission was formed in gross violation of the Constitution and the Parliament’s Rules of Procedure, as the “members of Parliament” elected from the “Georgian Dream” list were removed from the “Georgian Dream” faction, and through the creation of fictitious so-called “opposition factions” and their inclusion in the Commission, an attempt was made to give the public the impression that the opposition was also represented in the Commission.

Furthermore, the mandate granted to the Commission by Parliament far exceeded the limits defined by the Parliament’s Rules of Procedure for such a commission.

One of the fundamental pillars of democracy is party pluralism, that is, a multi-party system. There can be no democracy in a country where people do not have a real opportunity to unite in political parties that, in their view, best reflect their own visions, perspectives, and opinions regarding the country’s development.

The declared goal of the de facto ruling force of Georgian Dream, which it has been consistently pursuing over the past year, is the banning of opposition parties and, ultimately, the dismantling of pluralist democracy in the country. One of the main effective mechanisms for achieving this goal became the so-called Parliamentary Temporary Investigative Commission established in February 2025 (hereinafter: “the Investigative Commission” or “the Commission”).

1. Pre-Election Promises of Georgian Dream

One of the main promises made by Georgian Dream during its pre-election campaign prior to the elections of 26 October 2024 was that after the elections it would punish the so-called “collective United National Movement” (by which it meant not only the individual party United National Movement, but anyone who was not a supporter of Georgian Dream or any of its satellite groups). To fulfill this promise, the party claimed it needed to win a constitutional majority in the elections.

The party leadership never clarified exactly why obtaining a constitutional majority was necessary. However, as explained below, it is likely that the intention was to simplify — through constitutional amendments — both the substantive and procedural rules for banning political parties that are currently provided by the Georgian Constitution. Although Georgian Dream ultimately failed to secure a constitutional majority, even despite large-scale electoral fraud, it did not abandon its plan to destroy the “collective United National Movement.”

On the contrary — in recent times, one of the primary directions of the de facto government’s anti-democratic, anti-liberal, and anti-European efforts — alongside the dismantling of civil society and critical media — has been the destruction of the political opposition in Georgia. Both the amendments to party legislation and the establishment of the so-called Investigative Commission have served this goal.

2. Amendments to Party Legislation

Under current legislation, a political party can only be banned by the Constitutional Court, and only if the party aims to overthrow or change the constitutional order of Georgia by force, to undermine the country’s independence, violate its territorial integrity, or if the party propagates war or violence, or incites national, ethnic, regional, religious, or social hatred (see Article 23 of the Constitution and Articles 35–36 of the Organic Law On Political Associations of Citizens).

It is likely that Georgian Dream intended to change this rule if it had obtained a constitutional majority — for example, by transferring the power to ban political parties from the Constitutional Court to the Parliament. As noted, this attempt failed, but two important amendments were still introduced into the Organic Laws On Political Associations of Citizens and On the Constitutional Court of Georgia.

The first change is that from now on, the Constitutional Court is permitted to ban a political party whose “declared goals and/or the essence of its activities (including its personal composition and/or the composition of the party list submitted to the relevant election commission) essentially repeat the declared goals and/or the essence of the activities (including the personal composition) of a party that has already been banned by the Constitutional Court on the basis of the first paragraph of this article” (see Article 35, Paragraph 2 of the Organic Law On Political Associations of Citizens).

This amendment lowers the standard of proof so significantly that it becomes sufficient merely to show that a certain number of individuals in a party’s membership were previously members of another, already-banned party. On that basis alone, a new decision to ban the second party may be issued.

According to the second amendment, the Constitutional Court must issue a ruling on a constitutional claim regarding the constitutionality of a political party’s activities no later than 9 months after such a claim has been filed. Moreover, in cases provided by Article 36, Paragraph 2 of the Organic Law On Political Associations of Citizens, the period is reduced to 14 days (see Article 22, Paragraph 42 of the Organic Law On the Constitutional Court of Georgia).

It is well known in Georgia that the Constitutional Court typically spends years reviewing constitutional claims and issuing decisions. Yet regarding party bans, Georgian Dream has imposed strict deadlines on the Court. It is obvious that Georgian Dream is in a great rush and seeks to eliminate the real political opposition as quickly as possible, while also depriving its individual members of any possibility to establish a new party.

A more recent, third set of amendments provides that any person recognized as “associated with” a banned party may be prohibited from: founding or leading a political party, being a member of a political party, running as a candidate in parliamentary or municipal elections, holding public office, or making political donations.

We have discussed in detail the unconstitutionality of all these amendments in our recent blog post.

However, the main point is that before filing the claim to ban the United National Movement in the Constitutional Court, Georgian Dream needed some form of evidence to base its request on. It appears that the so-called Investigative Commission was created precisely to fabricate such “evidence.” In the following chapters, we will discuss how legally this Commission was established and how it operated.

3. The Issue of the Legality of the Composition of the Investigative Commission

Before analyzing the legality of the Investigative Commission, we should state from the outset that, in this review, we are intentionally not addressing the issue of the Parliament’s legitimacy. It is widely known that there are serious public concerns regarding this matter, but we refrain from discussing it here to ensure that the issue of legitimacy does not overshadow the separate legal violations tied directly to the goals and activities of the Investigative Commission itself.

Under current legislation, the representation of the opposition in a Parliamentary investigative commission must not be less than half of the total number of its members (see Article 42, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution and Article 62, Paragraph 3 of the Parliamentary Rules of Procedure).

As is known, as a result of the fraudulent elections held on 26 October 2024, four opposition parties obtained parliamentary mandates. Three of these parties refused their mandates and left the Parliament, while one — the party For Georgia (Gakharia’s party) — formally retained its parliamentary mandates, but refused to participate in parliamentary work.

In order to supposedly “resolve” this problem, Georgian Dream artificially created a so-called “opposition”: several MPs who had entered Parliament from the Georgian Dream electoral list were moved out of the majority and instructed to form one pseudo-opposition faction, People’s Power, and another pseudo-opposition group, European Socialists.

As a result of these developments, when the issue of establishing the Investigative Commission arose, the Parliament decided to create a 10-member commission: 5 seats were allocated to the Georgian Dream majority, and 5 seats were declared to belong to the opposition. Out of these 5 “opposition” seats, 2 were allotted to People’s Power, 1 to the European Socialists, and 2 to representatives of For Georgia. However, according to Georgian Dream, since the MPs elected from For Georgia were refusing to participate in parliamentary activities at the time, the seats allocated to them were declared “vacant.”

Such action directly contradicted the second sentence of Article 41, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution of Georgia, as well as the then-applicable Paragraph 2 of Article 49 of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, which explicitly stated that:

“Members of Parliament elected through the nomination of one political party do not have the right to form more than one faction.”

Even setting aside everything else, in a state governed by the rule of law, a so-called temporary investigative commission composed in violation of this rule would have no legal basis to operate or to issue any conclusions whatsoever, because the “opposition” seats in the commission were artificially filled in circumvention of the Constitution and the Parliament’s Rules of Procedure.

4. Basis and Mandate of the Investigative Commission

According to Article 61, Paragraphs 1–3 of the then-applicable Rules of Procedure of the Parliament of Georgia:

1. In accordance with Article 42 of the Constitution of Georgia, if the grounds provided for by this article exist, a temporary investigative commission shall be established in Parliament for the purpose of examining violations of Georgian legislation by state bodies and officials, and responding accordingly. A temporary investigative commission is a temporary entity of parliamentary activity.
2. The grounds for establishing a temporary investigative commission are:
   a) information concerning unlawful actions committed by a state body or official, or about a corruption-related offense, which poses a threat to the state security, sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political, economic, or other interests of Georgia;
   b) information concerning unlawful spending of the state or municipal budget.
3. A temporary investigative commission is established only for the purpose of studying a specific issue and is dissolved in accordance with the Rules of Procedure immediately after the completion of the study of that issue.

The above provisions clearly indicated that the basis for establishing a parliamentary temporary investigative commission was not, and could not be, the investigation of any unlawful act committed by any private citizen — that is the task of investigative authorities. Naturally, the legislative body of the country cannot devote its institutional attention to matters that law enforcement bodies must address. For this reason, the jurisdiction of a temporary investigative commission is strictly limited by the identity of the subject, the scope of the issue, and the requirement of specificity.

1. A temporary investigative commission is established for the purpose of investigating facts of violations of Georgian legislation by state bodies and officials, and for taking appropriate action;
2. The subject of investigation of a temporary investigative commission is limited only to unlawful acts or corruption-related offenses that pose a threat to Georgia’s state security, sovereignty, territorial integrity, political, economic, or other interests, or are related to the improper use of the state or municipal budget;
3. A temporary investigative commission is established solely to study a specific issue and not to assess a general political situation.

The broad mandate granted to the Investigative Commission by the de facto Parliament violated all three principles mentioned above.

(a) Regarding the subject of the violations to be investigated, the Commission’s powers exceeded the limits established by law

The Investigative Commission was established by a resolution of the Parliament of Georgia on February 5, 2025. In that resolution, entitled “On the Establishment of a Temporary Investigative Commission of Georgia to Study the Activities of the Regime and Its Political Officials Operating Between 2003 and 2012”, it is stated in points 1–2:

“1. On the basis of the initiative of the parliamentary faction ‘Georgian Dream,’ a temporary investigative commission of the Parliament of Georgia shall be established to study the activities of the regime and its political officials operating between 2003 and 2012.
2. The subject of investigation of the temporary investigative commission of the Parliament of Georgia shall be defined as the activities of the regime and its political officials operating between 2003 and 2012.”

On April 1, 2025, Parliament adopted another resolution amending the February 5, 2025 resolution. Specifically:

• The title of the resolution was amended as follows: “On the Establishment of a Temporary Investigative Commission of the Parliament of Georgia to Study the Activities of the Regime Operating Between 2003 and 2012, Its Political Officials, and Current and Former Officials United in Political Parties from 2003 to the Present”;
• Corresponding amendments were made to points 1 and 2 of the resolution, adding as a subject of study “the activities of current and former officials united in political parties from 2003 to the present.”

As noted above, according to the Parliament’s regulations, the purpose of establishing a temporary investigative commission could only be the investigation of facts of violations of Georgian legislation by state bodies and officials. In this respect, it is unclear whether the terms “regime” and “political officials of the regime” can be included in such a framework.

However, even if we assume that investigating the activities of the “regime” and the “political officials of the regime” operating between 2003 and 2012 could arguably fall within the temporary investigative commission’s mandate under the Parliament’s regulations based on the subject of the violations—which in itself is a debatable point—it clearly does not extend to studying the activities of “current and former officials united in political parties.” This is because an official of a political party cannot, in any way, be considered either a state body or a state official.

According to Article 1, Paragraph 1 of the Organic Law On Political Unions of Citizens, a political party is a voluntary, independent association of citizens established on a shared ideological and organizational basis. Furthermore, under Article 4 of the same Organic Law, “a party is a non-profit legal entity” to which “the provisions of the Civil Code of Georgia apply, insofar as they do not contradict this law.”

From the above, it follows clearly that studying the activities of “current and former officials united in political parties” goes far beyond the mandate of the Parliament’s temporary investigative commission. Consequently, by establishing as the purpose of the Investigative Commission the investigation of the activities of “current and former officials united in political parties,” Parliament clearly violated its own regulations.

It is also important to note the inconsistency between the temporal scope set by the aforementioned parliamentary resolutions and the requirements of the Parliament’s regulations. Specifically, according to the regulations, the subject of a temporary investigative commission could only be facts of violations of Georgian legislation by state bodies and officials. Therefore, the commission could not lawfully investigate violations that might have been committed by a person after leaving public office. In this respect, it was fundamentally incorrect to extend the commission’s mandate to cover offenses committed after 2012 by officials of the “regime” that operated between 2003 and 2012, i.e., after the regime had changed.

Furthermore, using 2003 as the starting point is legally unclear, because although the “Rose Revolution” occurred in November 2003, the legal transfer of power took place in January 2004 with the inauguration of the newly elected President Saakashvili and the formation of the new government system.

Such obvious lapses indicate the extent to which the current regime acts without seriousness, careful consideration, or thorough examination of issues when making decisions of strategic importance detrimental to the country.

(b) The commission’s mandate also exceeded the limits established by law under the principle of subject-matter jurisdiction

As noted above, the subject of investigation of the Parliament’s temporary investigative commission could only be unlawful acts or corruption-related offenses that pose a threat to Georgia’s state security, sovereignty, territorial integrity, political, economic, or other interests, or that are related to the improper use of the state or municipal budget.

In the Explanatory Memorandum of the February 5, 2025 resolution, we read:

"A radical opposition operates in Georgia, which, during its time in power from 2003 to 2012, committed numerous crimes against the Georgian state and the Georgian people.
Since 2012, this political force has openly opposed Georgia’s national interests and constitutes a decisive obstacle to establishing a healthy political system in the country.
The major systemic crimes committed by the regime operating between 2003 and 2012 are widely known, specifically those associated with the governance of the United National Movement: torture of prisoners and a system of torture in penitentiary institutions, killings, violence, violations of privacy, corruption and pressure on businesses to surrender assets and extort money, acquisition of media outlets from lawful owners, recognition of the initiation of the 2008 war, and attribution of war crimes to Georgian soldiers."

In the Explanatory Memorandum of the April 1 amendment to the February 5, 2025 resolution, it is stated:

"...During the course of the investigative commission’s meetings, it became evident that the regime operating between 2003 and 2012, as well as current and former political officials united in political parties, continue to openly oppose Georgia’s national interests and constitute a decisive obstacle to establishing a healthy political system in the country.
Current and former political officials united in political parties, who have committed or allegedly committed significant human rights violations, openly oppose Georgia’s national interests and constitute a decisive obstacle to establishing a healthy political system in the country."

Both explanatory memoranda are filled with political assessments. However, they do not provide any indication of unlawful acts or corruption-related offenses that currently threaten Georgia’s state security, sovereignty, territorial integrity, political, economic, or other interests, or that are related to the improper use of the state or municipal budget.

The illegal expansion of the Commission’s mandate is further evidenced by the Investigative Commission’s own published report, which devotes extensive attention to cases describing torture, inhumane treatment, murder, other forms of violence, and business extortion. It is indisputable that information about such crimes naturally requires serious investigation, which is the responsibility of law enforcement authorities. It is also less disputable that investigating such cases, if they had not yet been addressed, could fall within the “political interests” of the state and, accordingly, under the mandate established by the Parliament’s regulations for a temporary investigative commission.

The issue, however, is that the cases described in the Commission’s report, which concern these crimes, have already been investigated, and a number of individuals have already been held accountable for their actions. Consequently, it is unclear what the Investigative Commission was supposed to investigate in this regard.

If the Parliament and the Investigative Commission truly intended to address the systemic problem of torture and other forms of mistreatment, the Commission should have investigated the crimes committed over the past year and a half, which occurred in full view of all of us—when our fellow citizens were mercilessly beaten directly on the streets, when torture and mistreatment continued behind police cordons, in buses, police stations, and detention facilities. Investigating these crimes and identifying their perpetrators, organizers, instigators, and accomplices would indeed have been in the political interests of the state.

However, both the Commission and the Parliament showed not the slightest interest in these ongoing problems and instead focused on cases from 15–20 years ago that had already been investigated. This demonstrates that the Commission was driven not by the political interests of the state but by the narrow partisan political interests of the “Georgian Dream” party.

It is also worth noting the issue of investigating the events related to August 2008. It is widely known that representatives of the “Georgian Dream” party, entirely irresponsibly and to the detriment of the Georgian state, have spread and continue to spread insinuations regarding the aggression by Russia against Georgia in 2008, the military occupation of 20% of our territory, and the actions of the Saakashvili government. However unjust, factually inaccurate, and harmful to the country these political assessments by “Georgian Dream” officials may be, not a single such assessment to date—and not the Commission’s report—contains reference to any specific law or legal provision that could have been violated by President Saakashvili or any other state organ or official of his government in August 2008, when a historical enemy invaded our territory. Clearly, the Commission could not and would not have been able to convincingly demonstrate which elements of a crime might be found in any action of the previous government that was aimed at repelling an aggressor on our territory.

(c) The broad mandate granted to the investigative commission also violated the principle of specificity

Finally, as noted above, according to the Parliament’s regulations, a temporary investigative commission is established only to study a specific issue. The mandate granted to this Investigative Commission, however, covers a period of over 20 years, during which, based solely on the statements submitted to the commission, former “regime” officials allegedly committed at least 455 crimes—114 related to property rights violations, 105 to torture/inhumane treatment, 11 to the August 2008 war, and 225 of other types. If this can be considered to meet the requirement of “specificity,” it remains unclear what could be classified as “general” or “abstract.”

5. The Investigative Commission as a tool for imprisoning opposition politicians

Besides the fact that the alleged task of the investigative commission, along with other possible tasks, is to create “evidence” on which the Constitutional Court would later base its decision or decisions to ban opposition parties, the Commission has also proven to be an effective tool in the hands of the ruling regime for imprisoning opposition politicians.

Specifically, based on materials sent by the investigative commission to the Prosecutor’s Office, criminal proceedings were initiated against several opposition politicians for failing to appear before the commission, under Article 349 of the Criminal Code, which provides for criminal liability for “failure to comply with a lawful request of the temporary investigative commission of the Parliament of Georgia.” Among those convicted were Zurab (Girchi) Japaridze, Giorgi Vashadze, Nika Melia, Nika Gvaramia, Mamuka Khazaradze, Badri Japaridze, Irakli Okruashvili, and Givi Targamadze. All were sentenced to 7 or 8 months in prison. Later on Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze were pardoned.

Below, as one example, we discuss the legality of the commission’s requests and the criminal charges against Zurab (Girchi) Japaridze.

(a) Illegality and arbitrariness of the investigative commission’s requests

We reviewed the case materials concerning the charges against Zurab (GIRCHI) Japaridze and found that there is no evidence in the case that could justify his criminal prosecution.

Specifically, as can be clearly seen from the text of Article 349 of the Criminal Code quoted above, an essential element of this offense is the “lawfulness” of the Commission’s request. A person has no obligation to comply with an unlawful request from the Commission. Accordingly, before bringing charges against Zurab Japaridze, the Prosecutor’s Office was obliged to have at least one piece of evidence that could lead an objective person to reasonably believe that the commission’s request for Japaridze to appear at its session was lawful. The concept of “lawfulness” inherently excludes “arbitrariness” in the decision. In Japaridze’s case, however, the Commission’s request that he appear at a session and provide explanations was unfounded, arbitrary, and therefore unlawful. Several circumstances support this conclusion:

First of all, it is a widely known fact that from 2003 to 2012, Zurab Japaridze did not hold any position in any state body under the then “regime.” He did not work in any state institution, which means he could not have committed any offense or other violation under the Commission’s mandate, nor could he have had knowledge of any offense committed by a state body or official. As for Japaridze’s political activities, first with the “United National Movement” and later with other political parties, as noted above, these could not fall within the mandate of such a commission as defined by the Parliament’s regulations.

Second, strangely enough, it turns out that the Commission did not even summon Japaridze for his political activities. According to letter N1502/1-3/25 from the investigative Commission dated April 2, 2025, the Commission requested explanations from him regarding “the role of civil society in protecting human rights from 2004 to 2012, and in subsequent years, the domestic and foreign political processes.” Apart from the fact that these issues are unrelated to any illegal actions or corruption by a state body or official, they are also unrelated to studying the activities of “current and former officials acting within political parties,” which the Parliament, in violation of its own regulations, imposed on the Investigative Commission.

Third, the prosecutor’s decision regarding the charges does not explain in a single word what constituted the lawfulness of the Commission’s request for Zurab Japaridze to appear before the Commission. There is no reference to any evidence that would justify the lawfulness of this request.

Fourth, even after the prosecutor issued the decision on April 16, 2025, to bring charges against Zurab Japaridze, despite having no evidence regarding the lawfulness of the Commission’s request, the prosecutor still attempted to determine what constituted the lawfulness of the request. Although such evidence could not be obtained from the Commission, the prosecutor did not suspend the criminal proceedings, which a conscientious prosecutor would have done in such a case.

Specifically, in her letter N13/01-26036 dated April 23, 2025, addressed to the investigative commission, Prosecutor Mari Meshveliani wrote to the commission:

"In the interest of the investigation, please inform us how decisions are made regarding the summoning of a specific person to the sessions of the Temporary Investigative Commission of Georgia, which studies the activities of the regime in power from 2003–2012, its political officials, and current and former officials acting within political parties from 2003 to the present. Is there any document regarding this?
If so, please provide us with copies of the documentation reflecting the decisions taken regarding the summoning of individuals to the sessions of the Temporary Investigative Commission."

In response to the above letter, in her letter N1950/1-3/25 dated April 24, 2025, the chairperson of the investigative commission, Tsulukiani, wrote to the prosecutor:

"Commission members develop requests for individuals to appear before the Commission during a working meeting, based on the need for a thorough study of the issue(s) under consideration. There is no video/audio recording of this working meeting, and the developed request is formalized in a letter from the Commission chairperson, which is sent to the person being summoned."

In essence what the Commission chairperson says in the quoted words is this: We summon whoever we want, whenever we want, and we do not establish any documents beyond the invitation letter, which makes it impossible to verify, through documentation, whether the Commission’s decision to summon a particular individual was justified and reasonable, whether the person summoned could have any connection to the issue under investigation, whether such a person could provide any valuable information on the matter, which Commission member proposed the individual’s summoning, who supported or opposed the proposal, whether a quorum existed when the decision was made, and therefore whether the Commission was authorized to make such a decision.

The prosecutor could and indeed was obligated to clarify these matters by questioning Commission members and later as witnesses in court. However, a key feature of the current regime, among other things, is that the authorities are above the law, and ordinary legal procedures do not apply to them.

The general conclusion of this section is that, in the absence of documentary evidence and any reasonable answers on these matters, it is impossible to verify the lawfulness of the commission’s decision. Moreover, the lack of answers to such questions is a deficiency in the prosecution, not the defense, since the burden of proof in criminal proceedings rests with the prosecution.

(b) Lack of procedural rights for a person summoned to the Commission

The second issue is that a person summoned to the Commission practically has no minimum procedural guarantees that, for example, a witness has in criminal or administrative proceedings.

Specifically, according to Articles 67(1) and (2) of the Parliament’s regulations, appearing before a temporary investigative commission upon its request is mandatory, and the commission has the right to summon any person regarding the matter under investigation and obtain a written explanation from them, except in cases provided by law.

According to paragraph 9 of the same article, before giving an explanation, the person is warned about criminal liability for refusing to give an explanation, avoiding giving one, or knowingly providing a false explanation. However, no article of the regulations establishes that the person giving the explanation is obliged to provide an explanation that would incriminate themselves or a close relative (cf. Article 49(1)(d) of the Criminal Procedure Code) or provide any other information against themselves and/or a close relative (cf. Article 343(2) of the Organic Law “On Political Associations of Citizens”).

6. Parliamentary resolution on the approval of the Commission’s report

On September 3, 2025, the Parliament adopted a resolution regarding the results of the Investigative Commission’s work, through which it approved the commission’s report. In practice, the Parliament copied, almost verbatim, the main “findings” of the Commission in its resolution.

7. Constitutional lawsuit by the “Georgian Dream” faction

The so-called Investigative Commission’s report is attached as the sole piece of evidence to the constitutional lawsuit filed by the “Georgian Dream” faction. This claim aims at determining the constitutionality and banning the activities of three main opposition parties: “United National Movement,” “Coalition for Change – Gvaramia, Melia, Girchi, Time,” and “Strong Georgia – Lelo, For the People, For Freedom!”

If the claim is upheld, political pluralism in Georgia would be eliminated, and at least 700,000 voters, who according to the somewhat unreliable official data voted for these parties in the 2024 parliamentary elections, would be left without choice.

Conclusion

The Investigative Commission created by Parliament in February 2025 was an illegal mechanism established by the ruling party, “Georgian Dream,” to destroy opposition parties and eradicate pluralistic democracy in the country.

1. Purpose of the Commission: The real purpose of the Commission was not to investigate violations of the law, but to “fabricate evidence” that would enable “Georgian Dream,” through the Constitutional Court, to ban opposition parties. This purpose was also supported by legislative changes regarding political parties, which simplified the procedure for banning a party.
2. Illegality of the composition: The composition of the Commission directly violated the requirements of the Constitution and the regulations, which stipulate that at least half of the members must belong to the opposition. In the absence of real opposition participation, the commission includes, alongside the majority, artificially created “pseudo-opposition” groups affiliated with the ruling party, in violation of the rules for forming a faction. This is contrary to the requirements of the Constitution and the regulations.
3. Abuse of authority: The mandate and activities of the Commission violated the three main principles established by the Parliament’s regulations:

• Subject: The Commission investigated not only the activities of state officials but also those of political party representatives, which exceeded its competence.
• Object: The Commission’s “investigation” focused on crimes committed 15–20 years ago, which had already been investigated and for which specific individuals had already been held accountable. The Commission showed no interest in the widespread torture and mistreatment committed by law enforcement agencies in past periods, indicating that the Commission served the narrow political interests of “Georgian Dream” rather than the state’s political interests.
• Specificity: The Commission examined a period of over 20 years and hundreds of different episodes, which contradicted the requirement to study a “specific matter.”

4. Repressive instrument: The Commission was used for the direct persecution of opposition politicians. Criminal proceedings were initiated against them for failing to appear before the Commission. Eventually 8 politicians were convicted. The example of Zurab (Girchi) Japaridze demonstrated that the summons and subsequent charges were arbitrary and unfounded, as the Commission lacked documented and reasoned justification for summoning a particular individual.

5. Violation of procedural rights: Persons summoned to the Commission were deprived of fundamental procedural rights, including the right to refuse to provide testimony against themselves, which is a basic guarantee in criminal proceedings.

6. Parliamentary resolution: On September 3, 2025, Parliament adopted a resolution on the results of the Investigative Commission’s activities, approving the commission’s report. In practice, Parliament copied almost verbatim the main “findings” of the commission into its resolution.

7. Constitutional claim: The so-called Investigative Commission’s report has been attached as the sole piece of evidence to the constitutional claim filed by the “Georgian Dream” faction. The claim seeks to determine the constitutionality and ban the activities of three main opposition parties: “United National Movement,” “Coalition for Change – Gvaramia, Melia, Girchi, Time,” and “Strong Georgia – Lelo, For the People, For Freedom!”

8. Likely end of political pluralism: If the claim is upheld, political pluralism in Georgia would be eliminated, and at least 700,000 voters, who, according to the somewhat unreliable official data, voted for these parties in the 2024 parliamentary elections, would be left without a choice.

Overall conclusion: The Investigative Commission has become not a legitimate parliamentary oversight body but a targeted, illegal instrument in the hands of the ruling regime for persecuting political opponents and undermining democratic institutions.