Our second class at June 11, 2025 of "We, the citizens!" of Nomad-Uni together with "We, the people!" of Harvard-Uni course was an extraordinary one, directly matching "theory" and "practice" of Citizen Participation in defending constitutional rights - of citizens and non-citizens alike, in both Georgia and the United States of America.

While in the US citizens in Los Angeles took to streets to protect the rights of Mexican workers against illegal deportations, in Batumi, Georgia, activists, working with Independent Living Center, which is hosting our class at their office, went on protest action in solidarity with Temur Katamadze, widely known as Batumi Banner-Bearer, as he was participating in all the pro-European protests in Batumi, proudly baring a banner of Georgia, demanding implementation of the constitutional provision of Georgia's European belonging.

Temur Katamadze was arrested 16 January, on the order of Ministry of Interior, as a non-citizen, participating in protests, kept in custody, went on hunger strike, demanding Georgian citizenship, or asylum, as he is Georgian by nationality, but holding passport 🛂 of Turkey, but Georgian court had ruled for his forced deportation to Turkey, where he is in direct risk of imprisonment for supporting alternative to President Erdogan.

As the forced deportation happened exactly on 11 June, the day of our class, we found our local students and other Georgian activists preparing for solidarity action with Temur on the border with Turkey, in Sarpi.

We have started the class by me  explained the topic of second lecture - division of powers, system of checks and balances, stipulated clearly in the US Constitution, stressing that they are now been violated by US President Trump, "federalizing" National Guard of California, ordering them to confront demonstrators in LA beyond the will of California legislation and with direct threats to elected California Governor - Newsom, who opposed Trump's orders in court.

As we clarified, what was going in LA - both in streets and in courts, using their tools of  "checks ✅ and balances" against US President, Georgian activists saw clear parallels of this case  with Georgia, but in the way, that "checks and balances", formally present  in Constitution of Georgia, are not working , as the Court System always takes the side of ruling power, but not the people, who oppose it. 

And the only thing citizens are left to do in this case - is peaceful protest 🪧 showing disagreement with court decision and solidarity with Katamadze - to be held right there, at the Turkish border.

We recognized the importance of this action, waived support to  activists, leaving the class and even stood up with one of the posters they've just created, which reads : "Georgia is deporting a Georgian".

Then we returned to class with remaining few students,  and analyzed the connection between the protests in the LA and the system of checks and balances: which branches of  powers exercise "checks" on the other branches of power and how it works.

This materials are  in my presentation, that is shared in full in our study TG group.

This division if powers - in a foreign country -  is not that easy to grasp,  so we had studied and analyzed  it by multiple practical  examples, of Parliament - President relations in RF and Georgia, as well as relations of Legislative and Executive branches with Courts. 

This took us a lot of time and effort,  as we were also waiting for other students to return from action.

By the time they returned, we were already finishing Individual practical exercise: filling in the blanks in they Work Sheets, that were designed to describe American system of division of powers -  between Congress, President and the Courts - but I asked students to fill the blanks, answering the question: ❓ which authority SHOULD  branches of power have over each other in order to create a proper "balance of powers " in Georgia.

The task was not easy, so was implemented by few students only and it was moved to next Tuesday -as home assignment 🙂