On December 17-18, the USAID Rule of Law Program arranged a two-day workshop in Borjomi involving Constitutional Court (CC) judges, CC staff, and judges from common courts to discuss CC practices and the challenges of referring cases to the Constitutional Court.

The primary goal of the workshop was for the CC judges to share their knowledge and expertise with common court judges. 

The discussions focused on several important legal or practical issues, including: (1) how the CC sees the specific role of the judges of the common courts; (2) how authority should be distributed between the common courts and the Constitutional Court in terms of the interpretation of the Constitution, including when the common courts should directly apply constitutional provisions or interpret the Constitution according to the existing constitutional standards set by the CC and when they should refer the matter to the CC for constitutional review; (3) is it the right of the common court judge or an obligation of the judge to refer a matter to the CC when there is an obvious problem with provisions of the law; and (4) should the CC require an applicant to exhaust its possible remedies in the common courts before it accepts a constitutional claim.

The participants of the workshop were provided with very detailed practical recommendations by CC Judge Tugushi about when and how a common court judge should refer a case to the CC.