Tbilisi. Lawyer to defend rights of Akhalgori activist and journalist, Tamar Mearakishvili.  “Human Rights House Tbilisi” with the financial support of donors – “Human Rights House Foundation and “Urgent Action Fund” will completely cover the expenses of Tamar Mearakishvili’s lawyer. Tamar Merakishvili was kidnapped for several hours in August 2017 and de-facto authorities of the occupied Tskhinvali launched a case against her. Akhalgori District Court dropped all charges against Mearakishvili, but the so-called prosecution remitted the case to the court in July 2019. Read more…  Source: The web-page of the organization

Tbilisi. By an official letter of the European Court of Human Rights of September 27, 2019, the Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC) has been notified that on September 23, the European Court made its decision in regard to substantive review of the Machalikashvili case and began communicating with the government.  “It is important that the European Court started substantive review of the case in time and as a matter of priority, which fact in this case, among others, emphasizes severity of breach of the right as well as high level and importance of the conventional right to live”, - is stated on the website of the organization.  Read more… Source: emc.org.ge

Tbilisi. Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC) publishes information regarding a decision on the case of the Batumi mosque.  “In particular, the court made a decision that a legal act, issued by the Batumi City Hall that restricts the Muslim community to build a new mosque in Batumi, is illegal and discriminatory”, - is stated on the website of the organization.  Read more… Source: emc.org.ge

Tbilisi. The Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) and the State Inspector Service held a public discussion about the Draft Law on Personal Data Protection. The event brought together representatives of the State Inspector Service, the Parliament of Georgia, civil society and media organizations to exchange positions and concerns about draft law.  “If the draft law is adopted without the initiation of appropriate amendments in other legislative acts, access to the full text of court decisions will still be limited, which will be contrary to the standard established by the Constitutional Court of Georgia. Moreover, when enforcing the right to erasure and right to restriction of processing of personal data, there is a risk that freedom of expression will be disproportionately restricted”, is noted in the statement.  Read more… Source: idfi.ge

Tbilisi. ”Media Advocacy Coalition” responds to information released in regard to a “Batumelebi” edition.  “According to information released on September 21, 2019, relatives of a founder of “Batumelebi” are accused of attacking police. While Eter Turadze, Editor-in-chief, does not exclude that an action taken by police may be a message to the edition. “Media Advocacy Coalition” considers it necessary to determine whether the police action is linked with an activity of the media means and if so, the case should be given an appropriate qualification”, - is noted in the statement.  Read more… Source: gyla.ge

Tbilisi. The “Open Society Georgia Foundation” has published individual portfolios of candidates for judges of the Supreme Court of Georgia today. The portfolios offer profiles of twenty candidates selected/nominated by the High Council of Justice as a result of verbal interviews with judicial candidates, combine facts obtained from public sources and contain less appraisals. Read more… Source: The website of the organization

Tbilisi. The Public Defender of Georgia joins the public criticism regarding the pardoning of certain individuals by the President of Georgia and calls on the President to ensure maximum transparency and public involvement in the exercise of pardon power.  ‘The Public Defender explains that the discretionary nature of the pardon power does not imply its use without any justification. Pardoning should be aimed at achieving a specific task – be it in light of state, political, judicial, or special individual circumstances.1In each case, the use of such an exceptional power must be as perceptible and understandable as possible for the public’, - Is mentioned in the statement of the Public Defender.  Read more… Source: The web-page of the organization

Tbilisi. Today, the Georgian Young Lawyers Association and Transparency International – Georgia presented the seventh monitoring report of the High Council of Justice of Georgia of the year 2018.  The monitoring report assesses the legislation regulating the activities of the Council and the activity of the Council while selecting/appointing judges, transparency of the Council activity, a rule and practice of appointing the chairperson of the court and disciplinary liability of judges.  Read more… Source: The web-page of the organization

Tbilisi. “Article 42 of the Constitution” calls on the judicial authority to publicize decisions (judgments) of candidates for members of the Supreme Court. “On the background of the ruling team announcing establishment of “unprecedentedly transparent and open procedures” for selecting judges of the Supreme Court and, besides, making statements that the parliamentary majority would “monitor those candidates under a microscope”, all these procedures are devoid of real substance without studying professional experience of the candidates. Decisions made by judges are the best indicators of their competence and conscientiousness”, - is noted in the statement released by the organization, - “Respectively, we call on the judicial authority to publicize previously made decisions of candidates for judges and make them available for both the Parliament and general public within the shortest possible time”. Read more… Source:The website of the organization

Tbilisi. The Human Rights Center calls on the City Court to not restrict the lawyer of Zaza Saralidze from attending trials. “At the trial, carried out on September 12, where Zaza Saralidze was interrogated as a witness, the court did not consider a request of the victim and did not allow his lawyer to attend the hearing. Consequently, the lawyer of the Human Rights Center was not given the possibility to participate in the interrogation of Zaza Saralidze, the victim under his protection. As a matter of fact, at every stage of proceedings in regard to mentioned criminal case, this lawyer represented the victim both at various state agencies and in court”, - is noted in the statement released by the organization, - “The Human Rights Center calls on the Tbilisi City Court to ensure protection of rights of the victim in accordance with current legislation of Georgia, as well as with international standards, and to not restrict the lawyer of the victim from attending further trials”. Read more… Source: The website of the organization in a social network

Tbilisi. The Coalition for an Independent and Transparent Judiciary appraises the process of selection of candidates for judges of the Supreme Court at the High Council of Justice.  “Openness and public format of the interview process must be appraised unequivocally positively, however, the competition itself was not representative in terms of participation of various legal professions. Passivity of bar association and academic community was particularly noticeable. This fact was allegedly caused by corporatism of the judicial system, isolation, unfavorable circumstances for conscientious judges existing within the judiciary”, - is stated in the appraisal.  Read more… Source:coalition.ge

Tbilisi. Humanrights.ge published a brochure “Stories of Illegal Detentions along the Occupation Line in Georgia”.  “This brochure aims to raise awareness regarding the problems and human rights violations ongoing in the occupied territories of Georgia, Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia. The brochure includes the real stories told by the individuals who have been the victims of illegal detention and kidnapping by the representatives of the Russian Federation in recent years”, - Is mentioned in the preface of the brochure.  Read more… Source: humanrights.ge

Tbilisi. The Council of the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics demands an investigation into the case related to the editor of “Guriis Moambe”.  “On September 9, Tea Ioseliani, the editor of “Guriis Moambe”, stated that she had been threatened by a stranger in a social network with killing her children. The Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics addresses the Ministry of Internal Affairs urging to investigate the case related to Tea Ioseliani in a timely manner, provide public with information about the progress as well as results of the investigation, and raise the issue of liability of people concerned in case the fact of the crime is confirmed”.  Read more… Source: The website of the organization

Tbilisi. Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) submitted its opinion to the Parliament regarding the draft law on “Personal Data Protection” initiated on 22 May 2019.  The opinion of IDFI covers the following important issues: grounds for processing personal data; grounds for processing special categories of personal data; termination of processing of personal data, erasure and destruction of data; restriction of processing of data.  Read more… Source: The web-page of the organization

Tbilisi. “Article 42 of the Constitution”, with the financial support of the “Open Society Georgia Foundation”, organized a conference on “Girgvliani case and judicial practice” at the hotel “Holiday Inn”. At the conference, there was presented and discussed a draft conclusion, elaborated by “Article 42 of the Constitution”, according to which conclusion the Court of Cassation had an opportunity and obligation to return “Girgvliani case” back for re-trial as well as receive a special ruling if taking into consideration procedural law and judicial practice of that time.  Read more… Source: The website of the organization

Tbilisi. Civil Society Organizations publish a statement on charges against the founder of TBC Bank. “We, the undersigned organizations, are of the opinion that the existing circumstances, such as the launch of the investigation and the charges levelled against Khazaradze and Japaridze, could be an indication that the case is politically motivated. This suspicion is further reinforced by the fact that Khazaradze announced his intention to establish a public movement on July 9, 2019. Moreover, Mamuka Khazaradze is the founder of the Anaklia Development Consortium, which is the main responsible body for the construction of the Anaklia Deep Sea Port - a major and strategically important project for Georgia”, is noted in the joint statement. Read more… Source: www.transparency.ge

Tbilisi. Partnership for Human Rights (PHR) publishes a blog post: How to increase applying of victims of violence to police via carrying out gender statistics. “For me, as a lawyer, statistics is the best tool to convince a violence affected woman to trust the state. Statistics, which I almost never have because the state does not consider that it is important to know how and how often women become victims of violence, what happens with these women when abusers are released from prison, whether they confront repeated violence and a lot more...”, - is stated on the website of the organization. Read more… Source: phrgeorgia.wordpress.com

Tbilisi. According to information released by the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), the Strasbourg court has imposed responsibility on Georgia for breach of the right of Zurab Vazagashvili to life. “The European Court clarified that during proceedings, carried out on a national level, courts clearly emphasized that policemen acted officially while executing the special operation, respectively, the murder of Zurab Vazagashvili would be imposed on the state”, - is stated on the website of the organization. Source: gyla.ge

Tbilisi. Public Defender informed provided information on the criminal case of abuse of power by the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on June 20-21 to the Advisory Council.  "The joint recommendation of the Public Defender and the Council is to focus on the study of the overall situation: how the police used the force; whether the force used by police was in compliance with the instructions and legislative regulations in Georgia; how the operation was planned; who issued orders and who was responsible for the execution of the orders. These are the main issues and the investigation should focus on the abuse of power by individual police officers only after studying all this,"- the Public Defender told journalists.  Read more…  Source: The web-page of the organization

Tbilisi. On May 10, 2019 the High Council of Justice (HCOJ) started the process of selection of Supreme Court judicial candidacies to be submitted to the Parliament of Georgia. The procedure has revealed several significant problems undermining transparency and legitimacy of the process. The Coalition calls on: “The HCOJ to ensure full transparency of interviews with candidates, to provide adequate time for interviews that would allow the Council members to ask all the questions that will inform the public about the candidates’ past, professional experiences, and values”, is noted in the statement. Read more… Source: gyla.ge

Tbilisi. EMC presents a new research “Drug Policy in Georgia - Canceled Reform and New Tendencies”.  “The report aims to provide with an overview of basic tendencies concerning the state policy, legislative framework and criminal law practices on drug-related crimes. Through this report, the EMC continues documenting the systemic challenges in the field of drug-related policy in order to provide with comparative analysis of practices and circumstances of previous years as well as to contribute to fundamental changes in drug-related policy”, - is mentioned in a foreword of the research.  Read more…  Source: The web-page of the organization

On 12 July, movie screening was held for the School of Justice Alumni.  „Screening of “White Christmas” episode of the TV-Show “Black Mirror” was followed by the discussion. The participants together with the Free University Professor, David Zedelashvili discussed morality of obtaining evidence and the problem of developing technologies which purport to improve the administration of justice, but can also be used for deprivation of human liberty“. Read more… Source: Social page