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Constitutional Court of Georgia Rules not to Uphold Constitutional Claim № 1833
On December 25, 2025 the Second Board of the Constitutional Court of Georgia ruled not to uphold the constitutional claim № 1833 (“Alexander Kokhia and Kakhaber Gogodze v. the Parliament of Georgia”).
The norms of the Civil Code of Georgia disputed by constitutional claim 1833 regulate the determination of the monthly interest rate related to a secured loan agreement and certain rules and conditions for satisfying the claim of the loan holder/creditor from the amount obtained through the realization of the proceeds, as well as the issues of application or non-application of these rules to specific entities.
According to the explanation of the Claimants, within the framework of the case under consideration, the circumstance giving rise to discriminatory treatment is that on the basis of the disputed norms the restrictions imposed by the Legislator on private loan holders/creditors do not apply to entities under the supervision of the National Bank of Georgia. As a result, in loan relationships, the debtors of private loan holders/creditors are properly protected, whereas the debtors of the banking sector are placed in onerous conditions. In view of the abovementioned, the Claimants consider that there is discriminatory treatment between the debtors of persons subject to the regulation of the National Bank of Georgia and the debtors of other private loan holders/creditors.
According to the position of the Respondent, the entities under the supervision of the National Bank of Georgia and other loan holding entities not subject to the supervision of the National Bank are in fundamentally different situations. Correspondingly, the approach of the Legislator towards them is also different. Therefore, according to respondent’s opinion, comparable groups identified by the claimants do not constitute essentially equal subjects for the purposes of Paragraph 1 of Article 11 of the Constitution of Georgia, and therefore, there is no discriminatory treatment towards them.
In order to resolve the present dispute, at the stage of assessing the restriction of the right to equality, the Constitutional Court of Georgia examined whether the operation of the disputed norms gave rise to any kind of differentiation between comparable persons identified by the Claimants.
The Constitutional Court explained that the regulation of the disputed norms is directed not towards the debtors, but towards loan holders/creditors, establishing a differentiated approach exactly towards them, while towards potential consumers, i.e. borrowers having been named comparable persons by the claimant, disputed norms are neutral in nature. No differentiated Law and Order is established towards borrowers on the basis of any characteristic related to their affiliation. Debtors become subject to different legal regulation based on their own choice and in accordance with it. At the same time, within the scope of the consideration of the present case, no signs of applicability of the disputed norms, neutral in nature, in fact placing any category or group of persons distinguished by a fixed characteristic in a different situation in relation to other equal persons have been revealed.
As a result, the Constitutional Court of Georgia considered that no direct or indirect differentiation with respect to comparable persons identified by the Claimants is established by disputed norms and accordingly, no restriction of the right to equality before the law protected by Paragraph 1 of Article 11 of the Constitution of Georgia is given rise to. In view of all the above-stated, Constitutional Claim №1833 was ruled not to be uphold.
Subject of the Dispute: Constitutionality of Paragraph 3 of Article 276 and Paragraph 4 of Article 625 of the Civil Code of Georgia with respect to Paragraph 1 of Article 11 of the Constitution of Georgia.
