At its Plenary Session in Brussels on 24 November, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) granted its 2017 Human Rights Award to Georgian lawyer Zaza Khatiashvili.
Mr. Zaza Khatiashvili has been involved for numerous years in the institutional development of the legal profession, as well as the fight against its illegal persecution. As President of the Georgian Bar Association, he set up a “Lawyers’ Rights Protection Commission” to enquire into cases of persecuted lawyers. He is also founder and Chairman of the first Trade Union of Lawyers in Georgia.
He has been active in the defence of human rights, both in the international arena – winning the first ever case in the history of Georgia at the European Court of Human Rights and carrying out protests throughout Europe against the prosecution of lawyers in Georgia – and on the national stage – carrying out numerous successful protests against the illegal obstruction and interference to lawyer-client meetings.
His continuous effort for the freedom and independence of the legal profession, development of democracy, and defence of human rights made it so that the President of Georgia honoured Mr. Khatiashvili with the Medal of Honour in 2015. In 2015 he was awarded by the Ukrainian National Bar Association with the Medal for the “Development of Legal Profession”.
