On December 22, the Parliament of Georgia voted for the Public Defender's candidates, however none of them acquired needed number of votes. Such a result was known in advance, as the leaders of the parliamentary majority had announced the day before that they had failed to reach an agreement with the opposition on any of the candidates. The candidates nominated by the broader civil society also could not acquire the needed number of votes (90).

It is noteworthy that the candidates nominated by civil society were supported by a large part of the parliamentary opposition and, under the support of the ruling party, it would be possible to elect a new Public Defender. It should also be borne in mind that these candidates deserved the highest evaluation of the Commission set up by the Speaker of Parliament. The Commission was staffed by representatives of professional groups as well as civil organizations and universities, and the candidates were evaluated according to integrity, independence, professional skills and experience. Thus, the claims of the ruling party against these persons is only political and relates to their lack of party loyalty to the government. Consequently, the parliamentary majority is solely responsible for the failure of the process. Despite the promise that they would not nominate a candidate for the position of Public Defender, at the next stage of the competition, the Georgian Dream attempted to offer the opposition the five desired candidates and categorically refused to support the highly qualified, credible and reputable persons nominated by civil society.

The election of an impartial, independent and competent person in the position of Public Defender is one of the 12 priorities required for Georgia to obtain the EU candidate status. The Public Defender's office is crucial to ensure human rights and interests of inter alia vulnerable groups.

In addition to the above-mentioned specific 12th condition, the election of an independent person on the position of a Public Defender would allow the country to reduce polarization and showcase an example of successful civil society cooperation, thereby partially fulfilling two additional EU recommendations which relate to the elimination of the polarization in cooperation with parties (first recommendation) and engagement of civil society at all levels in the decision making (tenth recommendation).

In view of all this, we are concerned about the failure of the process of electing the Public Defender, which hinders Georgia's European integration process and we call on the ruling party to cooperate with the opposition and civil society to ensure timely enforcement of twelve conditions for EU membership candidate status.

Signatory Organizations

• International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED)
• Civic idea
• Human Rights Center
• Transparency International - Georgia
• Economic Policy Research Center (EPRC)
• European-Georgian Institute
• Georgian Reform Association (Grass)
• Open Society Foundation
• Georgia Democratic Initiative (GDI)
• Safari
• Democracy Index Georgia
• Media Development Fund (MDF)
• Social Justice Center
• Atlantic Council of Georgia
• Rights of Georgia
• Green alternative
• Institute of Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI)
• Democracy Research Institute (DRI)

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