Impeachment of Salome Zourabichvili
The ruling party ‘Georgian Dream’ is resuming impeachment proceedings against President Salome Zourabichvili. This was announced by the Speaker of Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili.
According to Papuashvili, the reason for renewing the impeachment process is that the president once again made several foreign visits without the approval of the Georgian government. Specifically, these visits were to France, Germany, Poland, and Belgium.
The first attempt to impeach Zourabichvili was made by ‘Georgian Dream’ in 2023, but it was unsuccessful, as they were unable to secure the required 100 parliamentary votes.
“As is known, in 2023, the Constitutional Court declared that, in accordance with Article 52 of the Georgian Constitution, the president has the right to make foreign visits only with the government’s approval.
You also know that after the violation of this article was confirmed, Salome Zourabichvili remained in office only thanks to the support of parliamentarians representing the radical opposition,” said Shalva Papuashvili.
The Constitutional Court concluded its review of the new impeachment request on October 5. Salome Zourabichvili herself did not attend the sessions. Her interests were represented in court by former Deputy Speaker of Parliament and former member of ‘Georgian Dream,’ Tamar Chugoshvili, and former Constitutional Court judge Maia Kopaleishvili.
“After the Constitutional Court confirmed the violation of the Constitution, the new convocation of parliament, at its first sessions, will remove Salome Zourabichvili from office through impeachment with no fewer than 100 votes,” predicted the Speaker.
By ‘new convocation of parliament,’ he means the parliament elected in the upcoming elections on October 26. That is, for ‘Georgian Dream’ to carry out its plan, it needs to secure a parliamentary majority in these elections.
Papuashvili also reminded that Salome Zourabichvili’s presidential term ends in December 2024, meaning that impeachment would shorten this term by no more than a month.
“Her removal (Zourabichvili) from office through impeachment, in terms of the length of her term, carries largely symbolic weight, but the legal and political significance of this decision is crucial.
We cannot allow the deliberate, gross, and systematic violation of the fundamental law of the Georgian people to go unpunished. Salome Zourabichvili, as a violator of the constitution, must not be remembered as a former president, but as a deposed president. This precedent will play an important preventive role in avoiding such arbitrariness in the future and strengthening Georgian democracy,” the Speaker stated.