TBILISI, October 3. /TASS/. Georgia’s Constitutional Court has adjourned the hearing of the case to impeach President Salome Zurabishvili to October 4.
"Today's session is closed. We will meet tomorrow at 11 a.m.," Constitutional Court Chairman Merab Turava said in televised remarks, after receiving the agreement of the sides to adjourn.
During the first day of the impeachment hearing, the court heard statements from representatives of the ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party, which called for the impeachment, and the president’s defense lawyers. The head of the party, Irakli Kobakhidze, said the president violated Article 52 of the Constitution by failing to gain the cabinet’s approval to represent the country in foreign policy matters. Defense lawyers Maia Kopaleishvili and Tamar Chugoshvili referred to Article 49 of the Constitution, which allows the president to represent the country in international relations, including by making certain foreign trips, without the cabinet’s consent.
The court also heard the cabinet’s Parliamentary Secretary Vakhtang Bachiashvili, who was questioned by the court about the cabinet’s practice of issuing decrees authorizing the president to perform certain actions. Zurabishvili didn’t attend the court hearing.
In early September, Zurabishvili visited Berlin, Brussels and Paris, where she held high-level meetings. It emerged later that the Georgian cabinet had not allowed her to make the visits, so the ruling party accused her of violating the Constitution and kicked off an impeachment procedure. At the end of September, she again traveled abroad without the cabinet’s approval, visiting some of the Baltic countries.
If the court rules that the president was in breach of the Constitution, the parliament will hold an impeachment vote. Zurabishvili will be removed from office if 100 lawmakers out of the total of 150 vote in favor of the measure.