A Refusal and Its Appealability — What Changed in 2025
A refusal to grant Georgian citizenship is the most painful answer an application can receive — but it is not the final word. Articles 16, 25 and 29 of the Organic Law of Georgia on Georgian Citizenship govern this field together: Article 16 defines the grounds for refusal, Article 25 determines who takes the decision and in what form, and Article 29 sets out how the adopted decision is appealed.
The decisive role in the question of appealability was played by Decision No. 3/3/1601 of the Constitutional Court of Georgia of 7 March 2025 (published on the website on 11 March 2025): the Court declared invalid the normative content of the first sentence of the first paragraph of Article 29 that excluded the possibility of appealing, in court, a negative decision of the President on refusal to grant citizenship by the ordinary, simplified, restoration or special procedure. Since then, a refusal decision can be appealed in court.
This page explains on which grounds a refusal is issued, in what form the decision is clothed, and how an appeal is built by those who consider the refusal unfounded.