Published on 6 January 2025
 
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 12388/24
Mamuka KHAZARADZE
against Georgia
lodged on 24 April 2024
communicated on 12 December 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns, under Articles 6 § 1 and 8 of the Convention, the applicant’s inability to have a slander lawsuit, directed against a Member of Parliament (“the MP”), examined on the merits.
On 11 October 2023 the applicant, a former banker turned into an opposition politician, sued the MP from the ruling political party for slander on account of the following statement made by the latter on 10 October 2023 during a political TV show:
“I would like to remind [the public] that [the applicant] was one of the accomplices to the scheme of racketeering of the business sector, which was implanted by the former ruling forces at the material time. (მამუკა ხაზარაძეზე შეგახსენებთ, რომ ის ერთ-ერთი თანამონაწილე იყო ბიზნესის რეკეტის სქემაში, რომელიც წინა ხელისუფლების მიერ იყო მაშინ დანერგილი.)”
Complaining that he had never been even a subject of an investigation, let alone being convicted of, for any criminal offence at least remotely associated with business racketeering, the applicant requested that the slanderous statement be publicly retracted by the MP. In his lawsuit, the applicant indicated that the untrue statement had already been reiterated by numerous newspapers, and that his reputation had thus been significantly tarnished.
By a decision of 16 October 2023, the Tbilisi City Court ruled that the applicant’s lawsuit should be left without examination on the merits. The court stated that, by virtue of Article 39 § 3 of the Constitution of Georgia, the MP enjoyed legal immunity for an opinion expressed, both inside and outside of Parliament, in the exercise of his parliamentary duties.
The applicant appealed, complaining about undue restriction of his right to access to justice. He argued that the first-instance court had erred in considering that the MP’s slanderous statement represented a value-judgment “expressed in the exercise of his parliamentary duties”, but the appeal was rejected by the Tbilisi Court of Appeals as ill-founded on 25 December 2023 in the final instance.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1.  Did the applicant have access to a court for the determination of his civil rights and obligations, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
 
2.  Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for his private life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention, on account of the MP’s slanderous statement and the manner in which the domestic courts conducted the civil proceedings?