Archil Kaikatsishvili, a Head of “Young Barristers”,  appealed to the High Council of Justice with disciplinary complaint against Maia Sulkhanishvili, a judge at Tbilisi Court of Appeal. 

The claimant demands to clarify if the judge has violated provisions of the Law of Georgia on the “Disciplinary Liability and Disciplinary Proceedings of Judges of Common Courts of Georgia”. In particular, whether  the judge Sulkhanishvili has committed any behavior disgracing judge’s reputation or not.    

The complaint against Maia Sulkhanishvili was filed due to May 6, 2015 decision,  passed by a judge at  Tbilisi Court of Appeal, Aleksandre Ioseliani, regarding  the case being  under consideration of the Judge Sulkhanishvili. It is stated in the decision, that the case is being considered by Maia Sulkhanishvili, however  there is no signature by her. The procedure for  making court decision, has been violated.   

Archil Kaikatsishvili believes, that a judge should be someone, who serves the interests of justice and his/her decisions should not be irresponsible and indifferent. In this case, fundamental rules for  making court decision, has been violated.  In order to maintain citizen’s trust towards  the fair trial, we consider it necessary to initiate disciplinary proceedings regarding the case.

In addition, disciplinary complaint by “Young Barristers” includes another information, which should become another subject for  examination. In particular, during the proceeding of June 12, 2015, the judge was informed of the decision, submitted  in violation of the rules of procedures for making court decisions. It turned out that apparently, the judge didn’t have this information, sine the first reaction of Maia Sulkhanishvili, was calling her assistant for immediate explanation. The assistant refused to comment on the issue. Furthermore, there was an attempt on behalf of the judge and her assistant, to take away original version of the decision from Archil, supposedly for distraction of the evidence. After Archil had demanded quite loudly to “return  document back”,  the judge left the hall. 

“Young Barristers” hopes, that High Council of Justice starts disciplinary proceedings against the judge. This hope is powered by  statistics, published on the official web-site of the Council. The statistics indicates, that during 2014, 204 disciplinary cases have been  considered out of 212 cases submitted to the Council. 179 cases have been transferred from 2013 to  2014 , meaning, 383 cases in total have been considered in 2014. Some of those cases are under consideration for the moment.