Country Governance Briefing: Georgia's party-ban case reaches the court plenum

Georgia's institutions are being tested by a single case. On 13 October the Constitutional Court said its plenum had accepted for consideration on the merits the ruling Georgian Dream party's claim to ban five opposition parties, with the first hearings set for October, according to the court's record of the act as summarised by Civil Georgia. The claim targets the United National Movement, Lelo/Strong Georgia, Ahali/Coalition for Change, the Federalists and For Georgia, the party of former prime minister Giorgi Gakharia and the only opposition force that still holds seats in parliament.

The claim was first filed in October 2025 against three parties and was widened in April 2026 to the Federalists and in September to For Georgia, according to the same account. Each resubmission reset the court's maximum nine-month review period. After the September filing the case went to the full plenum rather than a three-judge panel, with the court citing the need to clarify the constitution on a "rare and/or particularly important legal issue".

The court is short of judges. It has nine seats with ten-year terms, three appointed by the president, three elected by parliament by a three-fifths majority and three by the Supreme Court. Seven are active. Judge Manana Kobakhidze resigned on 13 October after her request to recuse herself from the party-ban case was rejected, and Judge Irine Imerlishvili resigned in October 2025, Civil Georgia reported. Two of the seven sitting judges were appointed by President Mikheil Kavelashvili, who was elected with the votes of the ruling party, and two more were selected by the Supreme Court plenum in 2025 and 2026.

Open reforms

• Party bans. In October 2025 parliament adopted amendments extending the restrictions that would apply to banned parties to individuals associated with them, according to Civil Georgia. The ruling party has not named individual members in its claim and has said it will not target the parliamentary mandates of For Georgia in this case.
• Foreign funding. The ruling party has continued to restrict foreign funding for civil society and media through a series of laws and amendments. Two German political foundations, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said they would leave Georgia after the authorities rejected their funding applications under the stricter grant rules, Civil Georgia reported on 16 October.
• EU assistance. The EU Delegation said on 16 October that it would spend EUR 38 million on new projects in rural development, small towns, women's economic activity, migration and climate adaptation, and that "due to Georgia's democratic backsliding, the EU no longer provides funding to Georgian authorities", its statement says. The ambassador, Pawel Herczynski, hopes to sign the projects by the end of the year, according to Civil Georgia.

Court and regulator actions

• Supreme Court vacancy. The High Council of Justice will restart the selection of a Supreme Court judge after the sole candidate, Temur Gogokhia, withdrew on 13 October, a day after the council advanced him to the final stage, its decision in the Legislative Herald shows, as reported by Civil Georgia. Applications for the vacancy, open since the death of Judge Giorgi Gogiashvili on 8 July, are accepted from 15 October to 5 November. Supreme Court judges are nominated by the council, approved by parliament and serve for life.
• Democracy record. The EU's annual report on human rights and democracy, published on 11 August, said "the state of democracy in Georgia was marked by significant backsliding" in 2025 and that the authorities' measures "effectively abolished civic participation and the system of checks and balances", according to the country reports published by the European External Action Service. It cites the freezing of bank accounts of several civil society organisations and says "political pluralism has been at risk" because of the effort to ban parties, Civil Georgia reported.

Programme conditions

Georgia's EU accession process has been described by the European Council since 2024 as de facto halted. The EU's report says there was no political dialogue with Georgia in 2025, that the EU "continued to halt financial assistance directly benefiting Georgian authorities", and that EUR 24 million had been contracted for civil society and independent media since October 2024. The suspension of visa-free travel for holders of Georgian diplomatic passports, tied to regression on visa liberalisation benchmarks, took effect early in 2026, according to Civil Georgia's reading of the report.

With the IMF the relationship is surveillance only. The IMF's country page names no current arrangement and shows SDR 330.08 million of outstanding credit at 31 March 2026. The 2026 Article IV package, published on 10 June, says "the financial sector is sound", "fiscal policy remains disciplined" and growth "is set to moderate toward potential", and asks the authorities to "accelerate structural reforms to support job-rich growth", noting "high youth unemployment and income inequality", the published summary shows. The summary does not address governance or central bank independence.

The gap between those two documents is the briefing's main finding. Macroeconomic surveillance gives Georgia a clean bill, while the EU treats the rule-of-law record as a reason to route money around the state.

What to watch: the first plenum hearings in the party-ban case, the 5 November close of applications for the Supreme Court seat, any appointment to the two vacant Constitutional Court seats and the European Commission's next enlargement assessment of Georgia.