Ekaterine Tsimakuridze has ten years experience of working in non-governmental sector on justice reforms and democratic development; currently she is the head of Democracy Index – Georgia, a CSO that monitors work of the Parliament of Georgia. Before she held various public offices. As a Deputy Head of the Legal Department of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia she led the work of the Parliamentary Relations Unit of the Ministry. She worked for the Parliament of Georgia; also, she passed qualification exam for judges and worked as an assistant judge in Tbilisi City Court. Ekaterine holds an LL.M degree in Rule of Law and Democratic Governance from Ohio Northern University, USA.

Ekaterine led public monitoring of Parliament of Georgia and released 6 parliamentary monitoring reports (2019-2022); she was the member of the public commission for the evaluation of candidates of Ombudsman of Georgia established by the Parliament (2022); she is an author and co-author of several research/monitoring reports and policy documents on justice system: quality of reasoning of court decisions; reforms in the judiciary and prosecutors office. participated in drafting the Judicial Strategy and Action Plan for 2017-2021, Strategy and Action Plan for the School of Justice in 2019.

“Societies are democratic not their governments. Therefore, democracy is functioning where local communities are able to control their local governments, not vice versa. That is where practical democracy takes its start. With the Fellowship program I have an opportunity to help three local communities to exercise their power to control, through local activists, local media and elected officials.” –  Ekaterine TSIMAKURIDZE