On October 24, the Georgian Dream unveiled its plan to nominate Nino Lomjaria as new Public Defender. We welcome that in new Ombudsman’s selection the ruling party supported one of the four candidates offered by civil society organizations. Taking civil society’s opinion into consideration during deliberations about Public Defender candidates is very important because the Public Defender should enjoy high level of trust of human rights organizations and activist movements.

Candidates nominated by civil society were selected with unprecedentedly high level of participation of numerous NGOs, a variety of coalitions and movements and by taking into account positions of organizations based in Tbilisi, as well as regional organizations.

In view of the low rate of representation of women in elected offices in Georgia, it is also commendable that a woman will be nominated as new Public Defender. Similar to other candidates that we offered, Nino Lomjaria is known to be a principled and a highly qualified individual with impeccable reputation. We hope that her candidacy will also be supported by the parliamentary opposition. This will increase the Public Defender’s legitimacy.

Sapari Union
Transparency International Georgia
Civil Development Agency
International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy
Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association
Institute for Development of Freedom of Information
Open Society Georgia Foundation
Article 42 of the Constitution
Human Rights and Monitoring Center (EMC)
Human Rights Center
Public Movement Multinational Georgia
Equality Movement