The Government of Georgia appealed the case to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, but on 28 November 2017, the Grand Chamber by a majority ruled that pretrial detention of Merabishvili, initially justified, became aimed at obtaining information on unrelated cases, including the one against former President Mikheil Saakashvili. Thus, the Grand Chamber completely upheld the decision of the ECHR Fourth Section regarding the case. By the time this decision was adopted by the Grand Chamber, in almost 60-year history of the ECHR there were only seven cases, including that of Ivane Merabishvili, in which breach of Article 18 of the European Convention of Human Rights was established by the section of the ECHR and the first one by the Grand Chamber. Ivane Merabishvili was only the third politician in relation to whom this breach was established by the Court and first case of this kind in the history of Georgia.