„I am standing before you today. It is a great honor, however, I would like to state that being Minister of Justice since October 25, 2012 until the present has been a challenging and responsible position. It has not been an easy task to bear this responsibility, but I believe that I and 6000 individuals from Justice have strived to uphold the values with which we, as part of the “Georgian Dream’s” government, rose to power. Approximately 6000 individuals from Justice are a corps that has worked closely with the government under my direction, ensuring that the government, “Georgian Dream” party, and country achieved numerous international achievements. These successes were made possible precisely due to the reforms we have implemented. If it were not for the wide-ranging reform initiated by the Ministry of Justice, which received unanimous support from the government and parliament, for which we extend our gratitude once again, it is unlikely that we would have signed the association agreement with the European Union in 2014. Indeed, the reform in the justice sector, the implementation of three waves of reform proposed by us and endorsed by the parliament, have been instrumental in our efforts to move closer to the European community, where our natural place is. These reforms have been positively assessed by the Venice Commission. They are reforms that European experts, who arrived prior to the signing of the Association Agreement and the granting of the visa-free regime for Georgia, unanimously acknowledged, would pave the way for the signing and implementation of the visa-free agreement.
This day has come, the day of signing the Association Agreement, when Irakli Garibashvili committed this historic act in Brussels on behalf of all of us. This day has arrived when our young people, above all, will be able to travel to the EU without a visa. Yes, this is the result of the reforms implemented by the government and parliament, with the Ministry of Justice playing a significant role in initiating and implementing these reforms. It is worth noting that, on our initiative, we made amendments that brought our legislation in line with European standards. Accordingly, these two international achievements that Georgia has achieved under our government demonstrate that they are the most significant and historic results on the path towards rapprochement with Europe. It cannot be said that this was achieved through inertia; we received an action plan in 2013 and worked diligently to achieve it. I will not go into detail about the actions taken by the Ministry of Justice in implementing the action plan’s first block, which was its sole responsibility. This block was the first step in the visa-free regime implementation plan called “Secure Documents” and it was successfully completed 100%”.
