Giorgi Tughushi was born in Tbilisi on March 26, 1977.

Giorgi Tughushi was born in Tbilisi on March 26, 1977. He studied at Tbilisi school No 55. In 1999 he graduated from the Department of International Law and Relations of Tbilisi State University and was qualified as a lawyer. In 2001 he got Master’s Degree in Public Administration at the Georgian-American Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA). In 2004 he took Master’s Degree in International Law of Human Rights at the Department of Law of Lund University, Sweden. Currently he is a PhD student of the Law Department at Tbilisi State University.

In 1998 he started to work as a lawyer in Tbilisi City Hall and then as Assistant to the Vice-Premier of the Tbilisi Government, later - as Head of the Secretariat of the Chairman of Tbilisi City Assembly. In 1999-2001 he worked as a leading specialist at the Committee on Regional Policy and Self-Government of the Parliament of Georgia and later - at the Committee on Sector Economy. In 2001-2003 he worked as Assistant to the First Vice-Speaker of the Parliament. In 2003 he started to work as a lawyer working on election systems in the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). In 2004-2008 he served as a human rights advisor at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). From 2009 he started to manage the EU project “Support to the Public Defender” and in the same year he was elected Public Defender of Georgia by the Parliament of Georgia. In September 2012 he was appointed Minister of Corrections of Georgia. In the same year, he founded an NGO - Georgian Democratic Initiative, where he managed a number of projects aimed at enhancing protection of human rights and civic education in this direction. In 2014 he started to manage the EU project “Support to the Constitutional Court” and in 2016 he was elected Member of Parliament of Georgia as well as Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Human Rights and Civil Integration. Since 2005 he has been a member of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and Chairman of the Jurisprudence Working Group of the same Committee. In 2011-2015 he was Deputy Chairman and Rapporteur of the United Nations Committee against Torture (UN CAT). Since 2012 he has been a member of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI). Since 2007 he has been working as an expert-consultant in several projects. His activities as an expert cover areas, such as legal reforms, prevention of torture, fight against discrimination, strengthening of national human rights mechanisms and analyzing legislations in several countries, including Montenegro, Serbia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Moldova, Greece, Ukraine and Vietnam. In 2005-2016 he was teaching human rights law to students of Master’s Program in International Law at the School of Law and International Politics at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, and in 2010-2011 - to students of Master’s Program at the Department of Law.

He has a wife, Sophio Balavadze, and a son, Davit-Giorgi Tughushi.