The ruling National Movement party has selected Giorgi Tugushi for nomination on the post of Public Defender to replace Sozar Subari, whose term in office expires in mid-September, ruling party MPs said on July 28.

Giorgi Tugushi, 32, who is not a familiar face for the public, now works for EU-funded project aimed at strengthening capacity of the Public Defender’s Office.

Tugushi, who is now a member of the Council of Europe Anti-Torture Committee, worked for few years as national human rights officer for OSCE Mission in Georgia since 2004 and as a legal expert for UN Development Program in Tbilisi for few months in 2003.

He was a media project coordinator for the Tbilisi-based Liberty Institute for seven months till May, 2003.

Tugushi was a senior legal expert at the Urban Institute/USAID in Tbilisi in 2000-2002 and head of the staff of the Tbilisi City Council Chairman in 1999-2000.

He holds LLM in international human rights law from University of Lund and a master’s degree in public administration from the Tbilisi-based Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA).

Tugushi said in a brief comment before a meeting with lawmakers from the ruling party on July 28, that human rights “is a field in which I have an experience; that’s not something new for me.”

“We have selected his nomination because of his experience in human rights; he also has experience in cooperation with international organizations on the matters related with the human rights,” MP Pavle Kublashvili of the ruling party, who chairs parliamentary committee for legal affairs, said.

Lawmakers from the parliamentary minority have also nominated their candidate for the post. They said on July 28, that they had selected MP Dimitri Lortkipanidze, a member of the parliamentary minority from the On Our Own party and a deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee from human rights.

Parliament will vote on candidacies at a session on July 31.

MP Giorgi Targamadze, leader of parliamentary minority, called on the parliamentary bureau, a body of senior lawmakers setting the legislative body’s weekly schedule, to postpone voting citing need for more public discussions on the matter. The ruling party lawmakers, however, declined the proposal.