Opinion: 'Ivanishvili should remember that global landscape for authoritarian regimes changed dramatically'
Lawyer predicts Ivanishvili’s downfall
Commenting on the current political developments in Georgia, lawyer Sandro Baramidze says there is a global trend of authoritarian regimes in decline, and that sooner or later this will also affect Georgia’s current leadership.
According to Baramidze, there is a broad consensus in society that the regime of Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Georgian Dream party — of which he is widely regarded as the informal leader — has gone beyond any legal framework and has “not only violated the country’s constitution, but effectively destroyed the constitutional order itself”.
The lawyer also commented on a complaint filed by the Georgian government with the UK broadcaster BBC, demanding the removal of a report alleging that chemical agent “camite” was used during the dispersal of protests in Tbilisi in 2024. Baramidze said the complaint contradicts procedural law and that no court would agree to consider it.
Sandro Baramidze:
“[In Georgia] there are no longer any fundamental human rights. The right to freedom of assembly and demonstration has been destroyed, as has freedom of association, while the livelihoods of media outlets and non-governmental organisations have been blocked. The authorities are now trying to eliminate political pluralism by filing a constitutional complaint to ban three parties. In this way, they seek to eradicate electoral democracy, because if there is no choice, elections lose their meaning.
But the situation for authoritarian regimes worldwide has changed dramatically. There is a clear trend towards their collapse. Sooner or later, Georgia’s turn will come — and in our case it will require far less effort than in Iran or Venezuela.”
As for Georgian Dream’s claims against the UK broadcaster BBC, the party has no standing to lecture one of the world’s most authoritative broadcasters on ethics or professionalism.
The BBC documentary that so angered Georgian Dream is based not on assumptions or facts established by the BBC itself, but on testimonies from victims, reports and conclusions by chemical weapons experts, as well as other sources.
More broadly, Georgian Dream’s complaint is inadmissible before any judicial body, including the European Court of Human Rights. A generally accepted principle of procedural law is that a party may file a complaint with a competent authority only to seek redress for violations of its own rights. It cannot act on behalf of others. Georgian Dream’s complaint contains four claims, three of which do not concern the party itself.
Two of the claims relate to the Interior Ministry, and one concerns Bidzina Ivanishvili personally. Georgian Dream, however, cannot file a complaint on behalf of the Interior Ministry or Ivanishvili. Such a complaint would be ruled inadmissible by any body, whether in Georgia or abroad.
Lawyer predicts Ivanishvili’s downfall
