Tbilisi City Court has jailed one more opposition leader, Nika Gvaramia, for failing to appear before a parliamentary commission ostensibly created to investigate the alleged crimes of the former ruling United National Movement (UNM) party. Gvaramia’s sentence is the latest in a wave of arrests over the past ten days.
Gvaramia, who is the leader of the Ahali party, was already in pretrial detention at the time of his sentencing for refusing to pay the bail set by the court in the same case. He didn’t attend the announcement of the verdict which, like in the cases of the other six jailed politicians, also banned him from holding public office for two years.
A total of eight people have been detained for failing to appear before Georgian Dream’s parliamentary commission which targets the opposition. Of those, seven have already been sentenced, while one — former Defence Minister Irakli Okruashvili — is in pretrial detention awaiting his verdict.
Days before Gvaramia, another Ahali leader, Nika Melia, and a retired opposition figure, Givi Targamadze, were sentenced to eight and seven months respectively.
On 24 June, Giorgi Vashadze, leader of the Strategy Aghmashenebeli party, was jailed for seven months.
Previously, on 23 June, the court sentenced Girchi — More Freedom leader Zurab Japaridze to seven months in prison on the same charges. Just a few hours later, Lelo leaders Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze were given eight months each.
The anti-UNM commission
The commission was set up in February to theoretically investigate the UNM’s time in power, following repeated pledges by Georgian Dream to punish the formerly ruling party.
Initially, its mandate was limited to the UNM’s years in government (2003–2012), but it was later expanded to cover the period up to the present day — effectively giving Georgian Dream free reign to target virtually any opposition figure.
Numerous opposition figures have boycotted the commission, refusing to recognise its legitimacy, as well as that of the current parliament, which has also been boycotted by major opposition parties following the disputed 2024 parliamentary elections.
Criminal cases were launched against those who refused to attend the commission’s hearings — if found guilty, those charged could be fined or sentenced to up to a year in prison. They could also be banned from holding public office or engaging in certain activities for up to three years.
On Monday, it was announced that the commission will once again refer the cases of politicians — Gvaramia, Khazaradze, and Vashadze — to the Prosecutor General’s Office. Those three were summoned to appear before the commission again after their arrests but refused to participate, this time from prison.
Georgian Dream has openly declared that it intends to use the findings of the parliamentary commission to file a case with the Constitutional Court seeking to ban the country’s main opposition parties — a promise the ruling party made to its voters ahead of the 2024 elections.
The ruling party has maintained that all major opposition groups operating in the country are satellites of the UNM and should no longer be allowed to exist.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
