BACKGROUND: Pundits in the United States and abroad have had unanimous praise for the swift yet peaceful manner that led to the demise of the Shevardnadze government. Still, some question the legality of the tactics used by Georgia’s opposition movement. A closer look however reveals a transition that was not only brought about within the parameters of the law, but one that was actually brought about through the use of law. The first evidence of this rule-of-law strategy came when opposition forces used the court system to challenge the election results. For example, opposition groups contested the results of the Bolnisi election district – a stronghold of the former government’s political machine – and the absentee ballot count of Georgians living abroad, both of which were overturned by the Tbilisi District Court. Indeed, after Georgia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) confirmed the results of the parliamentary elections, opposition groups used the court’s ruling against the CEC, arguing that the Commission had confirmed the election outcome based on some district results that were already overturned by Georgia’s courts. This made the CEC’s decision illegal not simply in the opinion of the opposition, but in accordance with rulings handed down by properly constituted courts. When the government attempted to convene the new parliamentary session, members of the opposition again cited the law to justify entering the chambers — entry that otherwise might have been considered illegal — by accompanying the 65 opposition parliamentarians who had just been elected and thus had every legal right to be in the legislative chamber. The opposition’s efforts to block the convening of the new parliament was in fact a legal countermove to block any attempt by President Shevardnadze to cover fraudulent elections results with a veil of legitimacy. When Shevardnadze issued a state of emergency by presidential decree, opposition leaders knew that the Georgian constitution required the order to be ratified by parliament within 48 hours or rendered void. If parliament could not convene, it could not ratify the decree. Moreover, until the convening of the new parliament, Nino Burjanadze remained the parliamentary speaker and the constitutionally appointed successor to President Shevardnadze. By securing the president’s resignation before the convening of a new parliament, the opposition preserved the legality of the process and the legitimacy of the new leadership. If the opposition’s first victories came from the district court, its legitimacy will likely come from the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court. On November 25, the Supreme Court already overturned the results of the party-list vote, and the Constitutional Court will soon rule on the validity of the entire elections. In response to the Supreme Court’s decision, opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili was quoted as saying “[the Court’s decision] proves that judicial reform was a success. Of course there are still some problems, but it proves that we did the right thing in reforming the courts.”

IMPLICATIONS: The use of the law by Georgian opposition forces in challenging the November election results and instituting political change has set a powerful precedent both within and outside of Georgia. Internally, the use of legal means to affect change has given the Rose Revolution a mantle of legitimacy at home and abroad. Moreover, that precedent may be useful in breaking with past practices of corruption and patronage. For example, after interim government officials began, almost reflexively, to appoint relatives and cronies to top government posts, civic groups quickly reprimanded them for their actions. Having donned the rule-of-law mantle, they will be held to a higher standard than their predecessors. Externally, events in Georgia will in varying degrees affect its immediate neighbors Armenia and Azerbaijan, both of which recently underwent elections that fell well short of international standards and the outcomes of which remain contested. Curiously enough, the immediate impact has been felt further away in the Western NIS and Central Asia. Anti-government protesters took to the streets in Kiev and Chisinau, inspired by events in Tbilisi. In reaction to Shevardnadze’s resignation, Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev pledged to redouble efforts to ensure free and fair future elections and appealed to the United Nations for assistance in upgrading the country’s electoral system in advance of parliamentary and presidential elections in 2005. Moreover, events in Georgia may ultimately disprove the theory that some countries are permanently stuck in a political state somewhere between authoritarianism and democracy and that the democratic transition paradigm has come to an end. If Georgia is able to consolidate the democratic gains of its rose revolution while safeguarding stability, it could conceivably become the first country of a second wave of democratization to sweep the post-Communist NIS region and may set the stage for further waves thereafter, particularly in places like Central Asia.

CONCLUSIONS: It is no accident that Georgian opposition leaders, most of whom are lawyers by training, understood the importance of lending legitimacy to their actions by working within the guidelines of the law. At the same time, there has to be a sober recognition that the legalistic approach taken by Georgia’s opposition was fed by years of persistent, often seemingly futile efforts to develop a respect for and use of the rule of law among leaders and citizens. Perhaps the main policy conclusion to draw from these events is the need a longer-term commitment on the part of international assistance donors and implementers to advancing the rule of law. The United States and other international governments deserve considerable credit for laying the foundation of legal reform in Georgia, which ultimately contributed to the peaceful transfer of authority. However, an even greater commitment is needed in order to consolidate the success of the rose revolution and to plant the seeds for similar revolutions in other countries in transition.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Claude Zullo is Associate Country Director for the Caucasus at the American Bar Association’s Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative.