Every time there was interference in the Georgian justice, it was from abroad – let’s remember the pardon of Melia, the pardon of Gvaramia. Such a statement made today the Chairman of the Parliament.

“Should Georgia be ruled by Georgian people or foreigners, that is the question. Based on our 30-year independence, we say that the Georgian people are the ones who should rule our country. NGOs that are 100% funded from abroad say that their funders should run our country, they should decide who should be a judge and who should not. This once again shows that these organizations are not representatives of any people. They are representatives of their donors and, of course, it is in their interest to somehow involve their donors in managing the people.

There are elections on October 26. We will go to these elections with the concept that Georgia is an independent country and we can make our own decisions. We are not going to involve foreign guardians to decide the justice system. We have a sad experience of how many times there was interference in Georgian justice, every time it happened from abroad.

Let’s remember [Nika] Melia’s pardon, [Nika] Gvaramia’s pardon. Every time someone intervened in Georgian justice, it was foreign intervention. Therefore, it is certainly harmful when foreign nationals are involved in the justice system of an independent country. It is sad when there are people in the judiciary who think that the Georgian people cannot make a decision, that they are incapable and foreigners should make a decision.

If we follow this logic, then the judges should not be Georgians and we should have foreign judges, as the [United] National Movement wanted, a complete surrender of independence, for which the Georgian people fought for decades”, - said Shalva Papuashvili.