European Court of Human Rights. Photo: Creative Commons

The Ministry of Justice issued a call for applications to re-elect the country’s candidates to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), following the request of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly committee to submit a new list of nominees.

The three candidates will be chosen for nomination by the Government of Georgia from the pool of five candidates, who will be shortlisted by the 13-member state commission under the Ministry of Justice.

MP David Matikashvili, deputy chair of the Parliamentary Legal Issues Committee, said on February 22 that the applicants will be judged by their professionalism. “We will select judges who will meet all the criteria [set by the Justice Ministry],” he explained.

On January 24, the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights, special committee of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, rejected the three Georgia-nominated candidates to ECHR, citing lack of qualifications.

The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights rules on individual or state applications alleging violations of the civil and political rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights.

The judges are elected by the CoE Parliamentary Assembly from lists of three candidates proposed by each member state for a non-renewable term of nine years.