To the State Commission for Selecting

Judicial Candidates from Georgia

to the European Court of Human Rights

In response to your letter #4920 of August 17, 2017, please be informed that the Coalition for a Transparent and Independent Judiciary will not participate in the work of the Commission for selecting judicial candidates for the European Court of Human Rights.

As you may recall, the Coalition issued a public statement on this matter on July 28, 2017, calling on the Government of Georgia to change the rules on composing the State Commission and its procedures. We consider this necessary since with the existing composition rules and procedures the Commission has already twice failed to fulfill its mandate – to draw a list of judicial candidates for the European Court of Human Rights through strict, fair and transparent selection procedures that would give the Court a real choice among the candidates. Along with releasing a public statement, the Coalition representative to the Commission also notified the Commission of the statement via email on the same day. Unfortunately the government has not shared our opinion.

Given the circumstances, the Coalition for Transparent and Independent Judiciary does not expect that the third competition conducted by the Commission with the same composition and using the same procedures will be fair and objective. The Coalition believes that our participation in the work of the Commission would be pointless.

Respectfully,

Eka Gigauri,

Chair of the Coalition

coalition_letter-_aug_25_2017.pdf [1]