19 Sep, 2021
Greetings,
As it is known, a nongovernmental organization – the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association – has filed a constitutional lawsuit demanding the recognition of the majoritarian electoral system, on the basis of which municipal elections will be held in two weeks, as unconstitutional.
We all remember than in 2016, a similar lawsuit was filed by the United National Movement in the Constitutional Court, in its own name, with the aim of supporting the revolutionary scenario. At the time, the efforts of the United National Movement proved unsuccessful, the Constitutional Court refused to satisfy the United National Movement’s absurd lawsuit, and the revolutionary scenario failed.
It is alarming that what the United National Movement did openly, in its own name, five years ago is now being done in the name of a nongovernmental organization. It is alarming that an organization bearing the status of a nongovernmental organization is planning to create a problem for the elections with a new, absurd lawsuit, two weeks before the said elections.
When you say nothing about a law adopted three months ago on the basis of a broad political consensus either during the process of passing the law, or in the three months since its adoption, and then protest the law in the most active pre-election phase, two weeks before the elections – this fact, of course, speaks volumes about the highly unwholesome political motive behind the lawsuit.
I will not talk long about the absurdity of the lawsuit today. To question the municipal electoral system on the pretext that the majoritarian constituencies are not thoroughly equalized is complete nonsense. Even a superficial understanding of the practices of democratic countries would be sufficient to prove this. However, it seems that the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association could not – or rather, would not – take interest in the said practices.
Such events once again demonstrate that the United National Movement has exhausted all hope of achieving any success in the 2 October elections. Against this backdrop, the only solution that they can see involves creating artificial problems and disorder. However, even these attempts of theirs are doomed to failure.
It is unfortunate that such actions of groups that bear the status of a nongovernmental organization cast a shadow over the nongovernmental organization as an institution, which, according to their own research, enjoys the lowest level of confidence among the Georgian public. Such actions, which contribute to the scenario of unrest, further deepen public distrust toward NGOs and cause their words to lose their value.