According to constitutionalist Vakhushti Menabde, the parties have two possibilities to open the parliamentary lists: 16 days before the elections or after the parliament's mandate.
As Menabde mentioned in the "PalitraNews" program "Resume", the attempt by political parties to open the parliamentary lists today is unpromising from the legal point of view, because according to the legislation, the window for opening the lists is closed in this period of time.
"The attempt to open lists for political parties, from the point of view of the political process, may be of some importance to create a political process, but from the legal point of view, it is unpromising. Of course, no one can force people to hold a certain position, but there are procedures that these people must follow when refusing a position that they once applied for. These procedures are determined by the Election Code, and I do not think that there is any contradiction with the Constitution of Georgia. The Electoral Code tells us that these people have the right to refuse to hold office, but for this they must observe a certain time frame:
The first is that 16 days before the elections, they should refuse and close the lists.
Second, when the parliament convenes and recognizes its authority, the party or individuals then have the opportunity to make statements and refuse to be on the list. Elected deputies, whose powers have been recognized by the Parliament, have the right to write statements and request the termination of their powers after recognition of their powers. If the Parliament does not approve it, it will be unconstitutional," said Menabde.
The constitutionalist also explained the ways of opening the parliamentary lists according to the norms provided by the constitution.
According to his explanation, if the Parliament does not terminate the powers of the deputies, it will be unconstitutional.
According to him, as a result of this, the deputies have the right to appeal to the Constitutional Court.
"According to the constitution, they really have the right, but this right is achieved by implementing certain procedures. The constitution says that this is regulated by legislation. The logic is clear why the Electoral Code does this. Because 1/3 cannot cause 2/3 to collapse. That is, 1/3 of the parliament cannot be overthrown. On the contrary, if it were and "Georgian Dream" lost the elections and "Dream" did this. Whoever speaks this today would be speaking the same thing that I am speaking today.
Deputies whose authority is not terminated by the Parliament have the right to appeal to the Constitutional Court. If the court approves, it will terminate. The problem is that our government has influence on the Constitutional Court. This is beyond the law," Menabde said.
In addition, in the program, the constitutionalist talked about the statements related to the banning of opposition parties by "Georgian Dream".
When asked to what extent the government can ban parties and whether a constitutional majority was needed for this, Menabde explains that "Georgian Dream" needs to ban opposition parties "for the reason of political trade" in order for the opposition to agree to enter the parliament.
In addition, as Menabde explains, "Georgian Dream" did not need a constitutional majority in order to cancel the party, because in order to cancel the party, 30 deputies needed to appeal to the Constitutional Court.
"In my opinion, the cancellation of opposition parties is the reason for political trade. As it was said at the beginning: "If the opposition continues to act destructively, if they continue to destabilize the country and do not enter the parliament, we will think about canceling them." In other words, if they do not behave intelligently, we will declare the opposition unconstitutional". The government is trying to get the opposition to agree to enter the parliament with this threat.
When "Georgian Dream" said that it needed a constitutional majority in order to ban the "National Movement" and, as it says, its satellites, I immediately said that "Georgian Dream" does not need a constitutional majority to cancel the party, because the procedure for canceling the party is as follows : 30 MPs apply to the Constitutional Court and the Constitutional Court makes a decision. It has 30 deputies, it controls the Constitutional Court, whatever decision it makes, it will accept it.
Now let's talk about whether it is possible to ban the party. Today, based on the information available on open sources, I don't see even 1 argument that would be valid for banning any party from entering the parliament", - states Vakhushti Menabde.
According to his own explanation, the past actions cannot become the basis for banning the party in the future if there is still no danger that the party intends to do the same.
"As for the case of Moldova, the party which was annulled by the Moldovan court, several arguments are indicated in the decision. The most important argument is that he posed a threat to Moldova's national security, and there was evidence of this. We are talking about pro-Russianness (pro-Russianness in itself cannot be the reason for the ban, the party must create destabilization), opaque finances and such issues," said Menabde.
