The lawsuit rests on the first sentence of Article 23, paragraph 3, of the constitution, which rules out parties whose aim is to overthrow or forcibly change the constitutional order, infringe the country’s independence or violate its territorial integrity, and on the Opposition Alliance of 2 March 2026, which, it argues, shows the five “share common goals, aspirations and a unified political position”, Interpressnews reported on Tuesday afternoon. Georgian Dream is not seeking “at this stage” to ban Droa, Strategy Aghmashenebeli, European Georgia, Freedom Square or Zurab Japaridze’s Girchi, the agency wrote, though its own listing of the Coalition for Change names Girchi and Droa among that bloc’s members, and the claim says the question of the others “may be raised later”.
Four ruling-party MPs will present the case, speaker Shalva Papuashvili told journalists on Monday: Archil Gorduladze, Giorgi Kakhiani, Tengiz Sharmanashvili and Tornike Cheishvili. The hearing’s start time, the bench and the names of the respondents’ counsel had not been printed by the agency by 08:30 Tbilisi time on Wednesday.
Outside, the opposition plans a rally at the court building in Batumi from 11:00 on Wednesday. “Lawyers will personally attend the session, while we will protest this crime outside the building,” Bondo Theodoradze of the United National Movement said in announcing the rally. Gakharia’s For Georgia asked the court on Tuesday to examine its own constitutionality as a separate case, and opposition leaders met the British, German and French ambassadors the same morning.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said on Tuesday afternoon that it “might have been easier to win the next elections with these worn-out faces”, and that “their days are numbered”. The Council of Europe’s secretary general, Alain Berset, said late on Tuesday: “I urge the ruling majority to protect political pluralism and preserve space for political opposition,” and that the organisation “will closely monitor developments”, after the European Commission’s spokesperson had said on Monday that the EU “is closely monitoring the lawsuits seeking to ban five major opposition parties in Georgia” and the Georgian foreign ministry had called the EU’s statements undue pressure and interference in the country’s internal affairs.
“Lawyers will personally attend the session, while we will protest this crime outside the building,” Bondo Theodoradze of the United National Movement said in announcing the rally.
In the other courtroom of the week, Irakli Garibashvili, the former Georgian Dream prime minister whose bribery case went to trial in Tbilisi on Monday, published another letter from prison on Tuesday evening calling his case “politically motivated absurdity built on defamation” and naming Bidzina Ivanishvili as the party’s founder. He wrote that his trial began on 19 October and gave no date for its next session.
The substantive hearings continue on Thursday 22 and Friday 23 October, by the agency’s report.