Judicial Funding and Unfulfilled Government Priorities

In just a few days, the European Commission will evaluate the progress of fulfilling the 12 conditions defined for granting the candidate status to Georgia. However, if we take a look at the reports published by public organizations, as well as the Venice Commission opinion published on 9th of October 2023, we will easily see how problematic the situation is in terms of fulfilling the conditions in the justice system.

Judicial system reform, which is aimed to the real improvement of the system, and to the formation of an independent and impartial court system, is one of the 12 conditions fulfilment of which remains a challenge. Despite the judicial reform waves, dedicated financial and human resources, judicial system still requires fundamental reforms.  Among them, granting the candidate status depends on the efficient and non-façade reforms.

With the current events on background, it is interesting what the government's plans are for 2024. Naturally, reforms, and especially complex changes aimed at improving the system require financial resources. This is why we decided to review country’s main financial document, the budget. The Ministry of Finance has already submitted the initial version of the state budget for 2024 to the Parliament for review.   

Budget of 2024

According to the draft budget of 2024, judicial funding increases. As stated in the 2024 plan, the highest instance of the country, the Supreme court will be funded by 17,200,000 Gel, more than 1.1 million compared to last year plan. 

Funding increases for General courts even more. In 2024, 122,000,000 Gel is planned to be spent in this direction, which is 5 million Gel more than last year’s 117,000,000 Gel. As for the High Council of Justice, independent body created to coordinate the judicial system and promote quality and effective justice, its funding for 2024 has been determined at 8,300,000 Gel. Last year plan amounted to 7,900,000 Gel.

In total, funding of 3 judicial bodies in 2024 will amount to 147,500,000 Gel, more than 6.5 million Gel compared to the 2023 plan. 

However, parallel to the funding, it is interesting what plans the government has towards judicial system. Naturally, judiciary stays in the list of state priorities this year too. According to the draft budget, strengthening judicial system will continue in 2024, its independence will be improved, and every measure will be taken to gain public trust in judiciary. For this purpose:

• The following actions will be carried out to increase efficiency of court activities: number of judges and court officials will be increased; court infrastructure will be improved; electronic case proceeding system will be refined, etc;
• Electronic program for disciplinary case proceedings will be introduced and established;
• Comprehensive database of court decision will be introduced;
• The activities of the High Council of Justice of Georgia will be improved in order to improve the quality of justification of its decisions.

These priorities defined by the state in the budget document are repeated word by word in the budget documents for 2022 and 2023, in the part on state priorities (Priorities of budget 2023; priorities of budget 2022). Unlike 2022-2024, narrative part of the judicial system priorities was determined differently in the budgets of 2021 and 2020. 

Budget priorities in 2021

Judicial system – institutional mechanisms for human rights protection will be strengthened. Government actions will be directed to increasing trust towards judiciary. Strengthening the faith of each citizen and the private sector towards Georgian judiciary is a priority for the government of Georgia. Judicial independence at institutional level will be encouraged. Rules for selecting and appointing judges and disciplinary proceedings will be improved. Cases will be allocated randomly, with electronic system.
Legislative and institutional mechanisms will facilitate establishment and development of mediation, as an alternative mean of dispute resolution, which on its hand, shall encourage improvement of the investment climate, increase in direct foreign investments and economic growth.  

Budget priorities in 2020

Institutional mechanisms for human rights protection will be strengthened. Government actions will be directed to increasing trust towards judiciary. Strengthening the faith of each citizen and the private sector towards Georgian judiciary is a priority for the government of Georgia. Judicial independence at institutional level will be encouraged. Rules for selecting and appointing judges and disciplinary proceedings will be improved. Cases will be allocated randomly, with electronic system.
Commercial collegiums and chambers will be established within the General Court system, which will be specialized in commercial and tax case reviews. As a result of a reform, the quality and speed of justice in commercial and tax disputes will improve significantly, legislative and institutional mechanisms will facilitate establishment and development of mediation, as an alternative mean of dispute resolution, which on its hand, shall encourage improvement of the investment climate, increase in direct foreign investments and economic growth.  

Thus, for the last 4 years, state priorities and plans towards judicial system mainly remain unchanged.  However, the challenge is not the priorities copied word by word year after year, but not fulfilling them. As we see from above mentioned, one of the main goals of the government in 2020-2024 was increasing public trust towards judiciary and encouraging judicial independence. However, despite several legislative reforms carried out during recent years, public trust towards judicial system is still low and judicial independence still remains as an important challenge.

 
At the same time, financial expenses directed to the judicial system functioning and improvement increases annually.

We shall probably also mention that, parallel to the increased funding, it seems fully utilizing the resources/funds allocated is not an easy task for judicial system either. As Georgian Court Watch wrote earlier, for years, all three bodies of judicial system (the Supreme Court of Georgia, General Courts and the HCoJ) had unutilized funds. 

In case of 2023, at this stage, budget statistics are available for only 6 months. As for 2022, information is full public, and as expected, tradition of the past year continues and funds from the budget were still unutilized. For example, the exact budget of the HCoJ in 2022 was 6,840,000 Gel, out of which only 4,597,300 Gel, or 67.2% was utilized. General Courts did better, utilizing 89.2% of the budget approved funds, and spent 88,384,400 Gel total. The highest utilization of funds was at the Supreme Court of Georgia, spending 98.9% of the funds allocated, or 14,186,300 Gel total. 

Lastly, we may say that in 2024, government priorities stay the same, while judicial funding increases. However, how will the judicial system manage to fully utilize the allocated resources, and the government and the Parliament will be able to carry out effective reforms and achieve fulfilment of priorities, is still unknown. 

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