Blogs

The Georgian Orthodox Church has been hit by numerous scandals in recent years, but have those scandals affected public trust?

 

In 2017, a priest was charged and convicted of attempting to murder Patriarch Ilia II’s secretary. On numerous occasions, scandal has emerged as a result of the government handing over land to the Church for a symbolic price. The homophobic riots in 2013 on International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia, which included Orthodox priests, were another salient event which likely hurt the Church’s credibility in the eyes of many in the public.

Today, CRRC Georgia released a report on public opinion in Georgia on the Covid-19 crisis. The report includes data collected between late April and early June, 2020. During this time, CRRC Georgia conducted weekly public opinion surveys and presented the results on a weekly basis to policy makers, local NGOs and the international community.

Social capital is a set of networks between individuals and groups of individuals and the mutual trust related to these networks. It facilitates communication and cooperation between people and makes available resources that would be otherwise out of reach. Thus, social capital is crucial for social and economic development. Caucasus Barometer 2019 data shows that while the level of structural and cognitive social capital in Georgia is somewhat low, with the cognitive component lagging further behind, the bonds between the two are strong and stronger than each’s link to other factors.

 

Attitudes toward the judicial system have been one of the most discussed and researched topics in Georgia. CRRC’s past blogs have shown that Georgians’ perceptions of court system fairness have been at low levels throughout the last decade and that attitudes toward court system (im)partiality are associated with rates of  trust toward the court system and people working in the court system. A recent CRRC study also highlighted division among the public regarding trust in judicial institutions. This blog post contributes to this conversation through describing views on the fairness of courts in Georgia, showing its broader inter-relations with trust in institutions, political views, and general perceptions of the government’s treatment of citizens.

What did Georgians think was the most important issue facing the country prior to the COVID-19 outbreak? The economy. The current COVID-19 outbreak will shift perceptions surely. Yet, the measures to fight the virus have slowed down the economy, exacerbating the previously existing economic issues. While the economy has consistently been the most important issue for most Georgians in recent years, this headline figure hides some nuance. This blog explores this nuance, looking at who names a mixture of economic and non-economic issues as the most important ones facing the country.

 

The world has seen large protests in response to the police murder of George Floyd, including in Tbilisi. Although Georgia underwent significant police reform following the Rose Revolution, the country’s harsh criminal justice policies were also criticized under the UNM, with police killings and the country attaining the ignoble distinction of having the fourth highest prison population per capita in the world. The Georgian Dream government also undertook a number of criminal justice reforms. Still, GD too have implemented controversial policing policies and had numerous scandals. Police murders remain an issue, police drove a boy to suicide in 2019 (and 2016), and for a time police in Tbilisi were implementing a policy resembling New York’s stop and frisk (notably, the UNM also attempted to do so). The police raid of the Bassiani night club and police violence in dispersing protesters in June 2019 were also widely condemned. Clearly, Georgia continues to face challenges with rule of law and law enforcement, ranging from misuse of power in criminal cases to general policing policy and crowd control during protests. But what does the public think?