Judges

This is based on a story that popped up once couple months ago. It did not get much attention back then, and it appeared again now.

Here's a quote from Rezonansi article talking mostly about EU relation reforms.

This applies to the reform of the judiciary. Among other things, we intend to take an unprecedented step in this field. The president has urged the EU to send European judges to Georgia so that they consider commercial disputes and criminal cases together with Georgian judges. This is very important because, in spite of the many positive steps that have been taken, the trust in the judiciary remains low.

What a novel idea - ask foreign judges, who do not speak the language, who do not know the legal system, who do not know customs of the country to be judges. Europeans will most likely not go for this, and even if they did, it would not fix anything. People distrust the judiciary for a reason, it may not be corrupt, but it lacks transparency, they apply 2 month pre-trial detention too easily and signs that judges are independent are not there.

This reminds me of a piece I did for Georgia Today back in the end of December, it did not end up being posted here, so here it is.