Georgian Barristers Association

In December of 2009 the second general meeting of Lawyers was hold at which there were elected for the period of four years a chairman of the “ Georgian Bar Association”, 11 members of executive board, 15 members of Ethics Committee, 3 members of Auditory Committee.

Any citizen of Georgia can become the member of the Association who has a higher juridical education, has passed the lawyers testing or has passed the qualification exams for judges, prosecutor’s workers, has a work experience for the period of no less than an year as a probationer either as a jurist or advocate. At present about 3800 lawyers are the members of the Association.

Main goals and functions of the “Georgian Bar Association” are as follows:

Promotion of implementation of justice and strengthening of supremacy of law in Georgia;
Development of legal profession; Protection of lawyer’s rights, profession liberty, interests and independence;
Ensuring the non-interference in advocacy activity;
Support to juridical education and raising of lawyers’ qualification;
Formation and promotion of system of free-of charge legal assistance;
Ensuring the protection of lawyer’s professional ethic standards;
Rise of trust to the lawyer and reputation in the society;
Promotion of social protection of the lawyers; Organization of conducting the testing of lawyers;
Organization of activity of Training Center for advocates and obligatory, durable legal educational program;
Organization of implementation of seminars, discussions, round tables and other projects for lawyers;
Publishing of the periodic journals of the Association;
Looking for financing sources;
Working out the standards of advocacy ethics;
Participation in legal creative activity;
Generalizing a judicial practice;
Creation of data base of lawyers, lawyer’s probationers and advocacy bureaus and secure their renovation;
Working out the rules of lawyers’ encouragement and disciplinary persecution and secure their fulfillment;
Receiving and issuing grants.

The management bodies of the Association are: the General Meeting of the Association and Executive Board of the Association. The Association is headed by the Chairman of the Association who is elected among the members of lawyers association for the period of 4 years, in accord to the rule established by law and Statute of the Association, by the secret voting, majority of attendants’ votes, on the basis of preliminary written consent of the candidate.