We give the arena to both one and the other to convince the court of the correctness of their position, Chairman of the Constitutional Court said before the start of the hearing on the impeachment submissions of President of Georgia.

“Nine judges decided this [to consider the case]. The decision has been made and we have invited both one and the other to the session. We give the arena to both one and the other to convince the court of the correctness of their position. If we wanted to make some dark decision, we would not have held this meeting at all. It is written in the law that the Constitutional Court could not call either the authors of the submissions or the representatives of the President at all and make a decision behind closed doors.

You didn’t see or don’t want to see that the court decided that this process should be public, that journalists should be represented. The law also provided for us to make a decision behind closed doors, but the fact that we invited both and conducted this process in public indicates that we are not and cannot be biased towards any party.

When the conclusion is made, only then can we talk about its content. Some television makes you feel that you know in advance what the court will decide.

If I had an aggressive attitude towards the President, we would have determined that the President should appear at the meeting. We said that her representatives are authorized to represent the position of the President. We have no aggression towards either the President or the authors of the submissions. When the process is over, when we listen to both, only then will we make a decision. I gave the President’s representatives time to talk about anything they wanted. Neither one nor the other needs my hint, they themselves know perfectly well what to talk about. Both of them are represented by qualified lawyers.

If you ask me this question, I will answer that I am absolutely and completely free. When we make a decision, we make it as we think it is constitutionally appropriate. As the Constitution dictates and obliges us, we take the decision”, - said Merab Turava.

As for whether the President will be summoned to the session again, he said: “The session will start and we will see. Since the President didn’t want to come to the trial, we don’t want to make the situation even worse”.