Thea Tsulukiani

Tsulukiani holds MPA degree from École Nationale d'Administration (ENA) in France (Averroès 1998-2000). She also holds the degree in international law and international relations and a diploma from the Academy of Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia.

Tsulukiani has 10 years of experience as a lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECHR) where at the same time she served as a member of the Committee for Rules of Court and as a rapporteur on the cases examined by single-judge compositions.

Tsulukiani ran in 2012 as a candidate for the Free Democrats, part of the six-party coalition of Georgian Dream, and was elected as Member of Parliament for Nazaladevi, a single- mandate constituency of the capital, with 72% of the vote.^[1] She subsequently served two terms as the Minister of Justice in subsequent Georgian Dream governments, from 2012 until 2020. Upon the withdrawal of the Free Democrats from the government and the parliamentary majority in 2014, Tsulukiani stayed with Georgian Dream.

She was the chairperson of 8 Inter-agency Councils in the Government of Georgia, among them the Criminal Justice Reform Council, the Anti-corruption Council, the Anti-drug, Anti-torture and Anti-trafficking Councils as well as the State Commission on Migration Issues and the Inter-agency Commission for Free and Fair Elections. Under her tenure, the court system in Georgia underwent several waves of reform.^[2] Her critics have argued that during this period Tsulukiani empowered a clan of judges, to ensure that courts return politically favourable decisions.^[3] She resigned on 29 September 2020, effective 1 October, when she was put on the candidate list of Georgian Dream for the 2020 elections.^[4]

She became member of Parliament in December 2020, but in March 2021, Tsulukiani was appointed Minister of Culture and Deputy Prime Minister.^[5] During her tenure as culture minister, she was criticised for removing experienced cultural managers, and instead appointing political loyalists, across the film, literature, music and museum sectors.^[6] In September 2024 she resigned, to be a candidate for Georgian Dream for the parliamentary elections and became member of parliament in November 2024. Tsulukiani then became chair of the so-called "Tsulukiani Commission", which investigated the alleged crimes of the previous government of the United National Movement in 2003-2012.