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The Constitutional Court of Georgia upholds Constitutional Claim №1532
On 19 September 2025, the Second Board of the Constitutional Court of Georgia upheld Constitutional Claim №1532 (“Giorgi Gotsadze v. The Parliament of Georgia”).
The constitutionality of Article 11, Paragraph 1 of the Law of Georgia on Notaries in relation to Article 11, Paragraph 1of the Constitution of Georgia represented the subject of the Dispute. The disputed provision, within the requirement of at least 5 years of experience of working in a public service by specialty, as a precondition for appointment to the position of notary public, excluded professional experience obtained at the institutions operating in the form of a legal entity under public law (LEPL). As a result, an individual with 5 years of professional experience in public service shall be eligible to hold the position of notary public without undertaking the mandatory internship.
According to the claimant, he/she holds a higher legal education degree, have passed the notarial qualification examination, and possess more than 5 years of professional experience in their field within the LEPL. Despite of this, the claimant was denied the opportunity to participate in the notary public selection contest, as working experience within an LEPL was not considered as public service experience. The claimant argued that the contested provision was discriminatory, as it treated individuals with essentially equal qualifications (legal professionals with identical professional experience) unequally solely on the basis of the organizational-legal form of their employing institution.
According to the statement of the defendant, the representative of the Parliament of Georgia, the differentiation was based on objective circumstances and served the legitimate purpose of the gradual reform of the unified public service system. The defendant explained that, in order to fully implement the Law of Georgia on Public Service adopted in 2015 and to ensure the integration of Legal Entities under Public Law (LEPLs) into the public service system, it was necessary to establish a “transitional period”. The purpose of this transitional phase was to conduct a functional analysis and categorization of LEPLs. Therefore, until the completion of this complex process, the existing temporary differentiation was to be considered as justified.
The Constitutional Court of Georgia found that the contested provision introduced differentiated treatment based on the place of employment. The Court held that, for the purposes of the disputed regulation, lawyers employed in both state institutions and in LEPLs constituted essentially equal groups, as the professional activities of both serve the public interest and are of a public-legal nature. The Court remarked that the legitimate purpose of the disputed provision was to identify individuals having already acquired the knowledge and practical experience necessary for notarial activity. However, the provision pursued this aim not by substantively assessing a candidate’s experience, but rather by relying on the formal legal status of the employer. In the Court’s view, even prior to the completion of the systemic categorization of LEPLs, it was possible to conduct an individual assessment of a person’s experience and determine its relevance with notarial activity.
In view of the above-mentioned, the Constitutional Court found that the unequal treatment established by the disputed provision was not based on objective and reasonable grounds, lacked a rational connection to the legitimate aim, and, consequently, held a discriminatory nature.
With the purpose of avoidance legal uncertainty, the Constitutional Court granted the legislator time to implement necessary amendments and postponed the annulment of the unconstitutional normative content until 1 July, 2026.
