Tbilisi City Court upholds President’s decision on Ivanishvili’s citizenship
By Ernest Petrosyan
Wednesday, December 28
As for Bidzina Ivanishvili’s case, the court statement reads that “the court confirmed that Ivanishvili’s receiving of French citizenship after being granted Georgian citizenship, served as a legal basis for Ivanishvili’s loss of citizenship, since according to point “D” of the 32nd article of Georgian organic law on “Georgian citizenship”, a person loses Georgian citizenship in the case of reception of another citizenship.
As for the case of Ekaterina Khvedelidze the statement reads that “as she held both Russian and French citizenships when being granted Georgian citizenship, the revoke of her citizenship does not come in accordance with the legislation.
According to Ivanishvili’s lawyer Eka Beselia, the ruling would be appealed to the Court of Appeals in the near future.
The Georgian Ombudsman’s office released a recommendation addressed to Saakashvili with the request to annul his order of deprivation of Khvedelidze’s citizenship. The recommendation however, intentionally was not publicly released as the case had already been considered by the court.
“As the court of first instance is finished, we are informing society about our submitted recommendation to the President, and express hope that the President will not appeal against the Tbilisi City Court decision in regards to Ekaterina Khvedelidze,” reads the Ombudsman's statement.
According to the statement, due to the high public interest in the issue, in accordance with the organic law on “Georgian Public Defender”, the Ombudsman studied the case in order to assess whether the President’s order violated Kvedelidze’s constitutional rights.
Ivanishvili also has another option to restore his citizenship, which is required for him to be able to carry out his political activity - to appeal directly to President Saakashvili, who, according to the regulations, has to respond to the application for citizenship within three months.
If Ivanishvili decides to appeal to the President for citizenship, the President should decide whether to grant him citizenship or not within three months from when the application for citizenship is submitted.
The reasons for refusal for granting Georgian citizenship, according to the law, are: if a person “has committed an international crime against peace and humanity”; “has taken part in a crime against the state”; or if granting citizenship would be “inexpedient” from the point of view of state and public security.
President Saakashvili had granted Ivanishvili citizenship in 2004. Constitutional amendments since 2004 allow the President to grant citizenship to foreign citizens “for special merits” before Georgia or if such a move is motivated by “the interests of the state”.
In one of his written statements, published on October 7 in which he laid out the reasons behind his decision to go into politics, Ivanishvili said he was going to revoke his French and Russian citizenship. Indeed such an opportunity did not pass without response. Four days later, on October 11, the Civil Registry Agency at the Ministry of Justice said it learned from Ivanishvili’s statement that the billionaire obtained French citizenship after being granted his Georgian one, determined as a violation of article 32 of the law on citizenship. Information about Ivanishvili’s French citizenship was publicly available from at least March 2011.
Yet Ivanishvili has completed the process of revoking his Russian citizenship, according to a December 26 notification from the Russian Interests Section at the Swiss Embassy, which he posted on his official Facebook page.