The Public Defender’s Office of Georgia announced on October 22 that it had completed its reorganization, as the first deputy Public Defender confirmed to the media that the process led to the abolition of the Gender, Human Rights Education, and Strategic Litigation departments, as well as the dismissal of seven employees.
In an October 22 statement announcing the completion of the process, the Public Defender’s Office said the reorganization aims to strengthen the institution and increase its effectiveness “through a clearer distribution of functions among structural units.” The goal, it added, is to consolidate existing professional resources so that human rights protection becomes “even more coordinated, systemic, and results-oriented.”
Tamar Gvaramadze, the first deputy public defender, separately told Netgazeti outlet that three departments had been abolished as part of the reorganization: the Gender Department, the Human Rights Education Department and the Strategic Litigation Department. She added that responsibilities in other departments had been redistributed and grouped thematically, while seven employees had been dismissed.
The abolition of the gender department has drawn criticism amid broader concerns about the institutional and legislative treatment of gender-related issues in the country. In 2025, the disputed Parliament adopted legislative changes removing the terms “gender” and “gender identity” from all Georgian legislation.
Former Deputy Public Defender Ekaterine Skhiladze was the first to report the planned abolition of the department on October 15, criticizing the move and arguing that addressing gender issues requires a twofold approach.
She said the approach should include “on the one hand, integrating a gender perspective into all areas of activity” and, on the other, “policy focused on specific issues and independent institutional mechanisms.” She said the department’s abolition is unjustified, regardless of the institution’s stated objectives.
“Abolishing the department is not justified by anything, however lofty the stated goals may be. For me, this decision has no other explanation except that the Public Defender has fallen in step with state ‘policy’ and simply made gender disappear,” Skhiladze wrote.
Reorganization’s Stated Objectives
According to the Office, the reorganization followed an internal assessment of its work processes and organizational structure, which identified instances in which “identical or closely interrelated functions were distributed across different structural units and duplicated,” risking “divergent assessments and responses on the same issues, uncoordinated work, and insufficient use of professional resources.”
Under the updated structure, responsibilities related to criminal justice will be consolidated within a single structural unit.
“On matters related to criminal justice, including hate crimes, femicide, violence against women and domestic violence, and other crimes against life and health, oversight of the protection of human rights and freedoms will be carried out by a single structural unit,” the office said, adding that this change “will facilitate the identification of, and response to, individual and systemic shortcomings under a unified and high methodological standard of the institution.”
The reorganization is also intended to increase the involvement of thematic units in the Public Defender’s decision-making on constitutional proceedings, which “will facilitate the full use of relevant sectoral experience and specialized knowledge when assessing issues within constitutional proceedings.”
The statement added that another objective is to “strengthen work” with Parliament “for the timely elimination of human rights violations, through the submission of relevant proposals and legislative initiatives.”
The updated structure, according to the Office, also envisages “strengthening oversight of the legal situation of women, through increased human resources, the redistribution of functions among the relevant structural units dealing with women’s rights issues, and the integration of these issues into all aspects of their activities.”
It argued that this objective will be done through “studying individual cases under a unified methodology, systemic monitoring of state policy, assessments, and advocacy for the implementation of recommendations.”
The statement added that the Office plans to strengthen its”systemic monitoring” mechanism for the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) for the fulfillment of the state’s obligations, “assessment of state policy and practice, development of relevant recommendations, and monitoring of their implementation.”
The Office also said that, with the help of the reorganization, it will strengthen educational activities and “awareness-raising measures in the field of human rights and freedoms, in which all relevant structural units of the Office will be actively involved, instead of the previous 3 staff positions.”
The reorganization is further intended to improve “access to digital services, provide more effective assistance to people seeking support and ensure transparency.”
It pledged to continue the exercise of its powers, “defined by legislation” for the protection and promotion of human rights and freedoms, and ensure that its responses are “consistent and of high quality.”
Dismissal For Reorganization
Earlier, on October 2, Public Defender’s Office employee Mako Arabuli wrote on Facebook that she had been dismissed after several years of work amid “reorganization.”
“Although over these 11 years the civil service went through certain stages of institutional development, and an approach was slowly taking shape that a civil servant is accountable to the people and the Constitution, unfortunately, in recent years even this small gain has collapsed,” she wrote, as cited by the media.
“We have returned to the Soviet mentality that a civil servant is accountable not to the people but to the ruling party or to the head of the institution. It is especially regrettable that this approach has become the norm in the Public Defender’s Office as well.”
Responding to Arabuli’s dismissal, Public Defender Levan Ioseliani said the reorganization had affected other employees as well, calling it “a normal thing.”
“[The reorganization] did not affect only her; it affected others too. It’s a normal thing,” Ioseliani said, according to Publika. “A structural unit was abolished, and several people were dismissed because of that.”
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