Georgia’s ban on rejecting government legitimacy
Constitutional lawyer Vakhushti Menabde has commented on a new legislative initiative by the ruling Georgian Dream, under which rejecting the government and its legitimacy could become a criminal offence.
Menabde argues that Georgian Dream is manipulating and distorting facts in an attempt to adapt German legislation to the Georgian context. The constitutional lawyer outlines the key differences between the German and Georgian models.
Vakhushti Menabde:
“The parliament of the regime — even using this term could itself become punishable — is discussing the introduction of sanctions against political groups that do not recognise the legitimacy of the Georgian Dream government.
Germany is cited as an analogy. In 2024, the country’s interior ministry banned a number of organisations associated with the Reichsbürger movement — a nationalist movement in Germany whose members do not recognise the legitimacy of the Federal Republic of Germany and consider themselves citizens of the German Reich that existed from 1871. It is important to note that these organisations were not political parties, since a different procedure applies to banning parties, with such decisions taken by the Constitutional Court.
Georgian Dream is manipulating and distorting facts here as well, attempting to adapt the German case to the Georgian context.
In the case of the Reichsbürger movement, the reasons for banning the organisations were as follows:
- Rejection of the constitutional order;
- Encroachment on state sovereignty, including the creation of a “parallel state”;
- A real threat of violence, including plans for a coup and a terrorist plot uncovered in 2022;
- Dissemination of antisemitic and extremist content;
- Sabotage of state institutions.
These reasons may appear straightforward, but for an organisation to be lawfully banned in each specific case, certain criteria must be met.
For example, in the case of the first ground, the state must prove the simultaneous existence of three factors:
- The existence of an organised group;
- An intention to abolish or replace the constitution;
- Effective steps taken to achieve this goal, including a strategy, a programme and systematic action.
The very concept of ‘rejection of the constitutional order’ does not mean declaring a government or the elections that brought it to power illegitimate. It means the following:
- Denial of the legitimacy of the state itself (in Germany’s case, the Reichsbürger movement regarded the Federal Republic as illegitimate and recognised only the Reich-era state; in Georgia, this would be equivalent to recognising only the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti or the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic);
- Rejection of the current constitution;
- Rejection of democratic institutions such as elections and courts. Importantly, this refers to rejection of democratic institutions as a whole, not distrust of specific elections, judges or courts.
In the Georgian version of the legislative initiative, everything is the opposite.
The Georgian opposition:
- Acts in the interests of the existing Georgian state and accuses the current regime of betraying the values of the Second Republic, recognising only a specific government as illegitimate;
- Defends the 1995 constitution in its entirety (including all amendments, including those adopted by Georgian Dream) and argues — with legal reasoning — that Georgian Dream is violating it;
- Demands the return of democratic institutions to the people, accusing an authoritarian government of having captured and misused them.
As you can see, the German case has nothing to do with Georgia. There, the banned organisations rejected democracy. Here, the opposition is fighting to defend it.”
Georgia’s ban on rejecting government legitimacy