Public confidence is an essential foundation of justice. But can a court remain independent when society has already delivered its own verdict?
When the public learns of a high-profile crime, there is rarely much patience to wait for the investigation to be completed, the evidence to be examined, or the court to reach its final decision. From the very first moments, the search for someone to blame begins. Emotional judgments spread quickly, and firm conclusions are drawn about who is right and who is guilty. In the modern world, this process moves so rapidly that the public “verdict” is often delivered long before the first court hearing even takes place.
This is not uniquely a Georgian phenomenon. In the digital age, social media, television and online news can shape public reaction within minutes. In Georgia, however, the problem has particular intensity. A relatively small society, deep political polarization, the continuing influence of television, and exceptionally active social media create an environment in which almost every high-profile case can become a source of public confrontation. In such circumstances, the justice system faces a difficult question: can a court remain faithful solely to the law and the evidence when society is already demanding an answer?
To answer that question, we must first recognize an important distinction: democracy and justice do not operate according to the same principle.
Democratic government is based on the will of the majority. Elections are won by those who secure greater public support. Politics responds to public sentiment because its legitimacy ultimately derives from the will of the people.
Courts are different.
The purpose of a court is not to satisfy public demands. Its task is to apply the law to the individual case before it, regardless of whether the resulting decision is popular or unpopular. This is precisely why legal systems recognize fundamental principles such as the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof, adversarial proceedings, and judicial independence. These principles do not exist to ensure that courts agree with society. They exist to prevent emotion from replacing law.
This is particularly important in criminal proceedings, where the strongest public demand is often not for the truth to be established, but for someone to be punished. Following a serious crime, an act of violence, or a tragedy, an emotional public reaction is entirely natural. Sympathy for a victim and condemnation of criminal conduct are normal human responses. Yet this is precisely where the greatest test of justice begins: can a court rely on evidence rather than emotion?
Legal history teaches us that some of the gravest miscarriages of justice have occurred when courts became captive to public expectations. An independent judiciary therefore does not exist to automatically enforce the wishes of the majority. It exists to uphold the law even when doing so produces a decision that a significant part of society dislikes.
Human beings have a natural tendency to assess events quickly and form opinions as soon as possible. This is not simply a matter of personality. It is part of human psychology. Uncertainty creates discomfort, while a quick and seemingly clear answer provides a sense of certainty. People therefore often reach a conclusion first and only afterwards begin selecting the facts that support the opinion they have already formed.
There is another important factor: the power of first impressions. If the first information the public receives presents an accused person as guilty, changing that perception later can be extraordinarily difficult, even when substantially different evidence subsequently emerges. In this sense, the presumption of innocence is not merely a legal principle. It is also a safeguard against the natural human tendency to reach premature conclusions.
This phenomenon is particularly visible in Georgia. The publication of footage showing an arrest, or even a brief report about a high-profile case, can be enough for social media and comment sections to fill with categorical judgments within hours. Most of those commenting have never seen the case file, examined the prosecution evidence, or heard the defence. Yet many are already convinced that they know what happened and what the final outcome should be.
In Georgia, a high-profile criminal case rarely unfolds exclusively inside the courtroom. In practice, it begins much earlier, on live television, in Facebook posts, TikTok videos, and thousands of online comments.
A few seconds of video, a headline, or a fragment of information may be enough for the public to reach what it regards as a final conclusion. There is no waiting for the investigation to end, for the evidence to be tested in court, or for the defence to present its position. In the public arena, the answers are already available: who is guilty, who is lying, and who should be punished.
What is most troubling is that, in this process, the actual circumstances of the case often become secondary. Public interest is not always directed towards discovering the truth. More often, people seek confirmation of their first impression. Once a position has been formed, new facts cease to serve as instruments for discovering what actually happened. Instead, they are assessed according to whether they confirm an existing belief.
This is especially visible on social media. A substantial proportion of comments contain neither legal reasoning nor factual analysis. In many cases, people are evaluating their own emotional response rather than the evidence. As a result, thousands of people may confidently debate the same criminal case without having read a single page of its materials.
In such an environment, the presumption of innocence risks becoming a principle confined to legal texts while losing much of its practical meaning in the public sphere. A person whose guilt has not been established by any court may already be treated as a criminal. And the greater the emotional involvement of the public, the harder it becomes to change that predetermined perception.
In Georgia, another factor compounds the problem: a pronounced public demand for punishment.
There are times when it appears that, for part of society, the purpose of justice is not to establish the truth but to impose the harshest possible punishment. If a court acquits someone, suspicions immediately arise that the decision must have been improper. If bail is imposed instead of pre-trial detention, it may be perceived as unjustified leniency. It is as though justice exists only when punishment is severe.
But justice and punishment are not the same thing.
The primary duty of a court is not to punish a person at any cost. Its duty is to determine whether the state has proved the charge to the standard required by law. If that standard has not been met, an acquittal is not a failure of justice. On the contrary, it is one of the clearest demonstrations that justice is functioning as it should.
The problem, however, is not merely that society often reaches conclusions too quickly. Those conclusions are also frequently highly emotional. And emotion is a poor guide when a person’s liberty, dignity and future are at stake.
There is another revealing feature of public debate. The same people on social media can attack entirely different participants in different cases with equal intensity. In one case, the lawyer is condemned for “defending a criminal.” In another, the prosecutor is accused of “carrying out orders.” In a third, the judge is said to be “under someone’s influence.” In a fourth, the victim is accused of “misleading the public.”
This is not necessarily accidental. Often, the problem is no longer the assessment of a particular case, but a permanent atmosphere of aggression that has taken root in the public sphere. In such an environment, discussion is gradually replaced by accusation, and argument by emotional reaction.
The media bears particular responsibility in this process.
In a democratic state, the primary function of the media is to inform the public, not to construct a public verdict. In practice, however, the boundary between the two is not always clear, particularly where a case is politically sensitive or emotionally significant.
Television remains one of the most powerful instruments for shaping public opinion in Georgia. Although the influence of social media continues to grow, television can still create a particular narrative within minutes, set the direction of public debate, and implicitly suggest whom the audience should trust and whom it should not.
The problem is not that media outlets have their own editorial policies. That is natural. The problem begins when information is replaced by judgment and facts by predetermined conclusions. At that point, it becomes increasingly difficult for the viewer to distinguish where reporting ends and interpretation begins.
In Georgia, this problem is further complicated by another factor: deep political polarization.
In high-profile criminal cases, attitudes towards an individual are sometimes shaped less by the evidence for or against that person than by the political group with which he or she is perceived to be associated. The same fact may receive entirely different interpretations simply because the accused, the victim, or other participants in the case are associated with different political camps.
When legal judgment changes according to political sympathies, the damage extends beyond the individual case. Confidence in the justice system as a whole begins to erode.
Public attitudes are also influenced by another, less obvious factor: social stereotypes.
In Georgia, financially successful or influential people are often viewed with suspicion. In a high-profile case, part of the public may immediately assume that such a person will be “saved by money,” “protected by connections,” or able to “influence the court.” In some individual cases, such suspicions may have a factual basis. But in a state governed by the rule of law, suspicion cannot replace evidence. A person cannot be judged according to wealth, social status, or public attitudes towards them. Otherwise, equality before the law becomes little more than a declaration.
Social media has another distinctive feature. People often argue not to establish the truth, but to display their own moral position. Comments frequently reveal a desire to demonstrate that the person writing them is more principled, more honest, or morally stricter than others. At that point, the case itself is no longer at the centre of the discussion. The commentator and the public image of his or her own morality take its place.
The result is an environment in which moderate, balanced, legally reasoned views become almost invisible, while the most emotional, harsh and radical positions receive the greatest attention and approval.
It is under these conditions that the central question arises: can a court remain outside this noise?
There is, of course, no basis for claiming that judges decide cases according to comments on social media. Such a claim would be neither fair nor responsible. But it would be equally unrealistic to assume the opposite, that judges are entirely isolated from the social environment in which they live.
Judges are members of the same society. They watch television, see news reports, and encounter public debates on social media. Judicial independence, therefore, cannot be measured solely by constitutional guarantees. Independence is also a matter of daily professional resilience: the ability to decide a case exclusively on the basis of its evidence and the law, even when the judge knows that the decision may be deeply unpopular.
This is where the line between democracy and populism must be drawn.
Public opinion unquestionably matters in a democratic state. No branch of government is entitled simply to ignore society. Courts, too, must be accountable in an institutional sense. Their work should be transparent, their decisions properly reasoned, and their legal reasoning understandable. But accountability does not mean dependence. Judicial independence means precisely that decisions are based on law and evidence, not on prevailing public sentiment.
We must distinguish between public scrutiny and public influence.
The first is essential. The second can be dangerous.
Society has every right to criticize courts, debate their decisions, demand proper reasoning, and challenge judicial arguments. But public pressure should not predetermine what the verdict must be. Once a court begins to ask, when deciding a case, how its decision will be received by society, there is a risk that the essential function of independent justice will begin to change.
The greatest test of a court comes precisely when the law and public expectations no longer point in the same direction.
It is easy to make a decision that will be met with applause. It is far more difficult to make one that fully complies with the law but is unacceptable to a significant part of society. Those are the moments in which the true independence of the judiciary is tested.
An independent court is not one that always gives society what it wants. An independent court is one capable of telling society “no.” Not because society is always wrong, but because justice cannot depend on the emotions of the majority.
In criminal proceedings, this principle becomes even more important.
If the prosecution has failed to meet the required standard of proof, the court must acquit, regardless of the seriousness of the allegation or the intensity of public outrage. If the legal requirements for pre-trial detention have not been satisfied, a court should not order detention merely because the public expects it. If evidence has been obtained unlawfully, it must be excluded even if doing so substantially weakens the prosecution’s case.
It is precisely in such cases that judicial independence is truly tested.
Unfortunately, in the Georgian context, there have been occasions when the impression has arisen that, in high-profile cases, the court is no longer confronted with only one question: “What does the law require?” It can appear that another question has entered the courtroom as well: “How will society react to this decision?”
If, in the administration of justice, the second question becomes more important than the first, the rule of law faces a serious challenge.
Courts do not exist to manage public dissatisfaction. Their purpose is neither to defuse political crises nor to bring an end to disputes taking place in the media. Their legitimate task is to determine whether the state has proved its case to the standard required by law.
The resulting decision may be unpopular. It may provoke public anger. But it is precisely at such moments that we discover whether a court serves the law or has gradually become a reflection of public sentiment.
History offers many examples of societies being absolutely convinced of an individual’s guilt, only for that person to be exonerated years later and for the justice system to acknowledge its own error. These are not merely historical curiosities. They remind us that public certainty and legally established truth are not always the same thing.
An independent court must therefore sometimes protect an individual not only from the power of the state, but also from the premature judgment of society.
Public opinion is invaluable in a democratic state. It shapes the political direction of a country, holds government to account, and compels institutions to answer to the public. But there is one institution whose central obligation is not to follow public opinion, but to preserve its independence from it. That institution is the judiciary.
Society has the right to form opinions. It has the right to criticize courts, express outrage, demand answers, and expect justice. But public expectations cannot carry greater authority than the law. If they do, justice gradually loses its meaning and becomes a reflection of prevailing public sentiment rather than an expression of law.
History repeatedly reminds us that the loudest public demand is not necessarily the most just. Majorities can be wrong. The media can be wrong. Social media can be wrong. That is precisely why courts exist: not to give legal form to public emotion, but to place law where emotion would otherwise prevail.
Judicial independence is not tested when a court’s decision coincides with what society wants. Its real test begins when the law requires an answer different from the one the public expects. At that moment, the judge is choosing not between popularity and unpopularity, but between law and pressure.
Ultimately, this question is not only about courts. It concerns every one of us. What kind of justice do we want: one that follows the loudest demands of society, or one that remains faithful to the law even when its decision is unpopular?
Today, public anger may be directed at someone else. Tomorrow, any one of us may become its target. It is then that we understand the true value of an independent judiciary.
The rule of law begins where a person’s fate is determined not by public sentiment, but by law, evidence, and the judgment of an independent and fair court.
