07 July 2026
The Politics of Provocation
A recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights concerning a TikTok video published by a Georgian self-defined civil activist adds another layer to the Court’s increasingly messy Article 10 case law. The applicant repeatedly insulted public officials in crude and sexually explicit terms while broadcasting to a large online audience. Domestic courts imposed only a modest administrative fine, later reduced on appeal. The ECtHR did not find a violation of the applicant’s right to freedom of expression – raising several questions about the limits of legitimate political speech online. Continue reading >>
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08 April 2026
Criminalization without Harm
On March 4, 2026, the Georgian Parliament passed yet another wave of anti-democratic changes to the Law on Grants and the Criminal Code. The law now criminalizes political expression if individuals or civil society organizations receive foreign support without prior government authorization. Beyond clear violations of freedom of expression and association, the Georgian case reveals a structural gap in criminal law theory and practice – the lack of substantive limits on criminalization. At the same time, the Georgian case shows that this need not be so: at least two concrete rules against criminalization emerge from the Georgian case. Continue reading >>
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27 May 2025
Georgia’s Foreign Agent Law 2.0
Tolga Şirin recently argued for activating interim measures under Rule 39 of the European Court of Human Rights in cases of political prosecution, such as that of Istanbul’s mayor İmamoğlu. This argument gains renewed urgency in light of Georgia’s proposed foreign agent law. Indeed, as civil society organizations (CSOs) face the threat of criminal sanctions under “Foreign Agent Law 2.0”, Rule 39 could become their last remaining remedy. Continue reading >>
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19 October 2024
Von Agenten und globalen Kriegsparteien
Die georgische Demokratie befindet sich in der Krise. Die Regierungspartei „Georgischer Traum“ verschärft ihren autoritären, rechtsstaatsfeindlichen Kurs immer weiter. Am 26. Oktober wählen die Georgier:innen nun nach politisch ereignisreichen Monaten ein neues Parlament. Der Wunsch der Georgier:innen nach einer Annäherung zur EU ist dabei weiterhin stark. Doch auch wenn die Regierung zuletzt auf viel Widerstand stieß zeigte sich die Opposition überwiegend zerstritten. Ob sie es schafft, sich auf den Erhalt der Demokratie zu besinnen und ihre Differenzen hintanzustellen, ist offen. Georgien steht vor der kommenden Wahl, so auch die Worte Phirtskhalashvilis, am Scheideweg. Continue reading >>
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13 May 2024
Challenges to Georgia’s EU Integration: Is the Georgian ‘Russian Law 2.0’ contrary to the Georgian Constitution?
The so-called Euro-Atlantic provisions have been inserted into the Georgian constitution in 2018 and aim “to ensure the full integration of Georgia into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization“. The Georgian draft law ‘On Transparency of Foreign Influence’, the so-called ‘Russian Law 2.0’, is likely to be contrary to those Euro-Atlantic provisions in the Georgian Constitution. Georgia has EU candidate status since late 2023. According to statements by EU representatives, the law is incompatible with Georgia’s EU aspirations. If the law is passed by Parliament, despite ongoing pro-Western protests in the streets of Tbilisi, it remains to be seen what the constitutional Court will make of it, and whether Russian influence can be contained by the Court, which is itself, under pro-Russian political influence. Continue reading >>26 May 2023
Finding a Constitutional Equilibrium
The beginnings of Georgian constitutionalism go back substantially to the first years of Georgia's first democratic republic (1918-1921). On 26 May 1918, Georgia declared itself independent from Russia, establishing a democratic republic and its first constitution in 1921. Arguably, it had recognized, collected and mixed the best possible practice of constitutional doctrines of the time. Although the current 1995 constitution bases its legitimacy on the first constitution, it was only through the constitutional reform of 2017-2018 that it was modernized to return to the achievements of the first Constitution of 1921. Continue reading >>
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01 March 2023
Georgia’s Bill on Foreign Agents and the Limits of the EU’s Soft Power
On February 20, 2023, the Parliament of Georgia registered the bill "On the transparency of foreign influence" that introduces the category of an "agent of foreign influence" – any private legal entity which gets more than 20% of its entire budget from a "foreign force". These facially innocent "monitoring" functions harbour a potentially totalitarian instrument of control. In Georgia, which underwent Stalinist purges of the 1930s, where family members (anonymously) denounced each other to the NKVD (secret police) and innocent people were rounded and summarily executed on charges of being a "foreign agent", this rings a much louder alarm bell, than elsewhere. Continue reading >>
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20 July 2022