On Wednesday the Constitutional Court in Batumi opened hearings on Georgian Dream’s suit to ban the five main opposition parties, on the ground of “a real threat to the constitutional order”. Three days of sittings. The ruling, final in Georgia, by June 2027. The opening of hearings, not a ban. Dump The Straits Times.

Batumelebi names the five: United National Movement, Coalition for Change, Strong Georgia–Lelo, the Federalist Party, Gakharia For Georgia. The plenum has seven judges. Revaz Nadaraia presides. Recording and photography are barred in the room, except for the public broadcaster. Interpressnews: the plenum rejected a motion to recuse judges, filed by the opposition. Procedure, not a sentence.

ST: the file began against three groups and widened to five, all pro-Western. Only For Georgia has seats in parliament. RFE/RL puts almost 800,000 votes, more than a third, with the four formations that crossed the threshold in 2024. Seats and threshold votes. Do not mix them. RFE/RL’s deadline is 24 June 2027. ST writes June 2027. Stay with June 2027.

Georgian Dream has been in power since 2012. It won the 2024 parliamentary election; the opposition says it was rigged. That is the dispute. The case rests, in part, on a parliamentary inquiry report about Mikheil Saakashvili’s government. A committee report, not Wednesday’s ruling.

Giorgi Butikashvili, of Ahali-Coalition for Change, said it was about taking genuine political choice from a large part of society. Kornely Kakachia, at Tbilisi State University, spoke of the risk of consolidating authoritarianism. An estimate, not a ban. The EU, a candidate “in name only” according to ST, has condemned the move. That is not accession.

Dump The Straits Times. The rewrite rests on the Straits Times and Batumelebi.

Image: the Constitutional Court of Georgia, Batumi, 10 January 2019, Andrew Milligan sumo, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The building, not Wednesday’s courtroom.

Sources consulted: Constitutional Court Begins Hearing Georgian Dream’s Complaint Seeking to Ban Opposition Parties — Batumelebi.