Margvelashvili Says Decisions on Presidential Pardon are Free of ‘Political Context’

The presidential pardon will not be used in a “political context”, President Giorgi Margvelashvili said after his predecessor Mikheil Saakashvili called on him to pardon several convicted former high ranking officials.

“I have always been strictly observing humanitarian aspects of the presidential pardon and I have never allowed and will not allow for the pardon to be in any way considered in a political context,” President Margvelashvili told Georgian journalists in New York on September 29.

“The presidential pardon mechanism is not a place for deciding the justice or injustice of political issues. This mechanism was and remains a humanitarian function of the state and I want it to be well understood by those politicians, who try to make the mechanism political. That it is not the case,” Margvelashvili added.

In an interview with Rustavi 2 TV last week, ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, who is now governor of Odessa region in Ukraine, said that Giorgi Margvelashvili’s legacy of president will be determined by whether he pardons ex-interior minister and ex-PM Vano Merabishvili, former Tbilisi mayor Gigi Ugulava and ex-defense minister and former prison system chief Bacho Akhalaia, who are serving prison terms after being convicted on various criminal charges, which they claim are politically motivated. 

“President Margvelashvili’s place in history, in future Georgian politics… will be measured by whether he pardons those three people, who made an unimaginable amount of progress for the Georgian statehood,” Saakashvili said.
 
“Margvelashvili’s decency will be determined by signing this act of pardon,” he added.

President Margvelashvili was criticized by PM Irakli Garibashvili when in July, along with 96 other inmates, he pardoned two former local officials from the Khoni municipality, including Leven Bobokhidze, a brother of lawmaker from the opposition United National Movement party, Akaki Bobokhidze.

“We have seen that our president is a really ‘national’ president,” PM Garibashvili said at the time, using a term in Georgian, which is usually used to refer members or supporters of the United National Movement (UNM) opposition party.

“He [President Margvelashvili] pardoned one of the inmates, Mr. Bobokhidze, who was detained by our prosecutor’s office and sentenced, and now the President pardoned him. It is very good that we have such a noble president and I hope that he will pardon [ex-President Mikheil] Saakashvili, [ex-Defense Minister] Bacho Akhalaia, [ex-Interior Minister] Vano Merabishvili and other good people too very soon,” Garibashvili said sarcastically.

Commenting on Saakashvili’s calls to pardon former high-ranking officials, parliament speaker Davit Usupashvili said on September 28, “It would be interesting if Saakashvili spoke about the future and policy of his president, Mr. Poroshenko, because today he [Saakashvili] serves Ukraine and I would like to see the Ukrainian government pay attention to what positions its high-ranking official voices towards friendly Georgia.”

“A pardon is within the president’s power and President Margvelashvili is personally responsible for what he will do or will not do in this regard,” Usupashvili said. “I am sure that President Margvelashvili will observe the constitution in procedures and make decisions for the benefit of the country, within the frames of the constitution and principles, which should be the basis for an act of pardon.”

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