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Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC) has submitted an application to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of Maia Bakradze, a former judge of the Tbilisi Court of Appeals and the chairperson of the “Unity of Judges”. The applicant claims the violation of the following articles of the convention: article 8 (right to privacy and family life), article 10 (freedom of expression), article 11 (freedom of association), article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) and article 6 (right to a fair trial).
Maia Bakradze is a founding member of the “Unity of Judges” a voluntary association of judges. “Unity of Judges” was created in 2013 in support of the judicial reform and was aimed at improving the guarantees of judicial independence through strengthening individual judges. To achieve this goal, the “Unity of Judges” and its representatives, including Maia Bakradze, often publicly expressed their views about the shortcomings of the legislation and criticized the High Council of Justice for its unsubstantiated decisions and the lack of transparency.
On September 22, 2015, Maia Bakradze was dismissed from the position of a judge from the Court of Appeals due to the expiration of her term of office. In 2015-2016, Maia Bakradze parttook in two competitions to be reselected as a judge, however, the High Council of Justice in both cases refused her reappointment. Records of Maia Bakradze's interview with the High Council of Justice clearly illustrated that members of the Council were more interested in activities of “Unity of Judges” and her opinion on critical statements regarding the High Council of Justice rather than assessing the criteria of good faith and competence. In addition, when further analyzing the results of the competition for judges in 2013-2016, it is clear that the vast majority of former judges who were refused to be re-appointed to their posts were members of the "Unity of Judges". Application to the European Court of Human Rights states that Maia Bakradze has been discriminated by the High Council of Justice over critiques voiced by her and "Unity of Judges", which is a violation of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights in conjunction with Articles 8, 10 and 11.
Furthermore, national courts insufficiently reviewed the case of discrimination against Maia Bakradze. To specify, they denied her motion to request significant evidence for the case, which put her in an unfavorable position compared to the respondent. Additionally, the national courts did not assess whether or not the High Council of Justice applied a uniform standard while assessing all the candidates and whether there were any signs of unequal treatment in their decisions, in violation of Article 6 of the first paragraph of the Convention.
The case of Maia Bakradze exepmlifies arbitrary decisions made by the High Council of Justice in terms of persecution of alternative opinion and appointment of judges, which have been pointed out by Georgian non-governmental organizations for years. This problem became relevant once again in 2019, amid the process of selecting judges for the Supreme Court. Both local and international organizations, including the Public Defender of Georgia and the Venice Commission have highlighted the severity of the issue.
