Tbilisi. The Coalition calls on the Parliament of Georgia to refrain from appointing Supreme Court judges until a systemic justice reform takes place and a political consensus for deciding such issues becomes mandatory. Read more… Source: idfi.ge

Tbilisi. According to the decision made by the Constitutional Court on June 7, 2019, judicial acts endorsed as a result of open hearings should be available to public, however, the Parliament has not yet adopted relevant legislative changes. “We call on the Parliament of Georgia to ensure proper and timely execution of the decision of the Constitutional Court of Georgia made on June 7, 2019”. Read more… Source: socialjustice.org.ge

Tbilisi. The Social Justice Center has prepared a brochure that aims at informing society about legal restrictions and penalties related to narcotic drugs. “A number of legislative changes aimed at introducing liberal approaches have been implemented in recent years in the field of drug policy, in line with the decisions made by the Constitutional Court. The amendments concerned, inter alia, the regulation of marijuana consumption. Regrettably, however, public perceptions pertaining to drug-related crimes or offenses often are not in conformity with the current legislative framework”, - is stated on the website of the organization. Read more… Source: socialjustice.org.ge

Tbilisi. According to IDFI’s assessment, the case of Mikheil Saakashvili is being considered in violation of the right to a fair trial. “Mentioned harms not only the accused, but the reputation of the Court and the principle of publicity of trials, as well as establishes a dangerous precedent”. Read more… Source: idfi.ge

Tbilisi. Public Defender states restricting the 3rd President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, from participating in his own trial grossly violates the right to a fair trial enshrined in the Constitution of Georgia and the European Convention. “The Public Defender calls on the Special Penitentiary Service to properly and conscientiously perform its rights and duties and ensure that Mikheil Saakashvili is brought before court, by providing appropriate guarantees for his health and safety. The Public Defender also calls on the court to give the accused the opportunity to state his position, participate in the examination of evidence and protect his rights within the framework of all three ongoing cases”, is noted in the statement. Read more… Source: ombudsman.ge

Tbilisi. According to information released by an organization “Sapari”, the UN Women Committee has published a decision on the case of Khanum Jeiranova. Jeiranova had been accused of extramarital affairs. On September 16, 2014, she was attacked by three relatives of her husband, who dragged her across the village and beat her severely. The woman was also forced by family members to commit suicide with rat poison. The mother of Jeiranova found her dead in a shed the next day: the body was hanging on a rope. Mullahs, who served the body of the woman, noted that her clothes were saturated with blood, while according to the testimony of a witness, she had been “beaten to death”. “The UN Women’s Rights Committee concluded that Georgia failed to ensure investigation and prosecution related to gender based violence as well as to violence in the name of dignity committed against a women, who was brutally beaten by family members in front of her young children, which fact resulted in her death. In the viewpoints about the violation published today, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) expressed its concerns over the fact that the authorities of Georgia failed to ensure detention of family members of Khanum Jeiranova, the victim, and bringing them to justice for beating her to unconsciousness, as well as in regard to the decision of returning her back to relatives, after which fact she was found dead”. The committee instructed the state to launch an independent investigation and punish perpetrators. Read more… Source: sapari.ge

Tbilisi. The Coalition for an Independent and Transparent Judiciary releases a statement considering that public response of several judges to the statement made by the Administrative Committee of the Conference of Judges and their dissociation from it might be an important step in restoring public confidence in the judiciary. “On November 4, the Administrative Committee of the Conference of Judges of Georgia released a special statement. In the statement, instead of addressing questions existing within society, the Administrative Committee accused civil society organizations and international actors of meddling into activities of the judiciary system emphasizing the importance of judicial independence. The problematic nature of the statement was also demonstrated by the fact that in the following days several judges publicly distanced themselves from it”. The Coalition member organizations: call on sitting and former judges to speak openly and publicly about challenges existing in the judiciary system; express their full readiness to protect the interests of judges, both nationally and internationally, in case they are subjected to direct or indirect sanctions for expressing dissenting and critical opinions. Read more… Source: socialjustice.org.ge

Tbilisi. Georgian Democracy Initiative (GDI) responds to recent detentions of activists by law enforcers. The organization considers that the tendency of violation of rights of activists and their punishment on political grounds in the country is intensifying. “We call on the court to refrain from using the Code of Administrative Offenses as a repressive tool in legal proceedings of detained activists and assess their actions in the light of freedom of expression and the current political context. Besides, we urge the Ministry of Internal Affairs to avoid abusing the same code so as to suppress criticism, which fact is a clear example of politicization of law enforcement agencies and weakens public confidence in them”. Read more… Source: gdi.ge

Tbilisi. Georgian Democracy Initiative (GDI) responds to election of two new members of the High Council of Justice at the Judicial Conference of Georgia. The organization considers that “convening of the XXX Judicial Conference of Georgia and election of two new members of the High Council of Justice on October 31, 2021, following to critically tense political developments and the next day after conducting second round of the local self-government elections in the country, is a successful attempt of the clan, existing in the judiciary, to staff the High Council of Justice with trustworthy and loyal to it judges on the background of scattered public focus on other issues and, thus, make sure its influence on the High Council of Justice in the coming years is maintained”. Read more… Source: www.gdi.ge

Tbilisi. The Coalition for an Independent and Transparent Judiciary believes that in the current situation, the election of a judge member/s of the High Council of Justice by the Judicial Conference is unjustified. “The XXX Conference of Judges is scheduled for October 31, 2021. According to the agenda, the Conference should elect a judge member/members of the High Council of Justice of Georgia (HCOJ). It should be noted that none of the HCOJ members’ term has expired, and no information on the early termination of a member’s term has been made public. Consequently, it is still unknown which member is leaving the Council and for what reasons”. Read more… Source: coalition.ge

Imereti. According to information released by the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), a judge of the Kutaisi Court of Appeals wrote an important distinctive opinion on an electoral dispute of GYLA. The organization considers that arguments incorporated in the distinctive opinion set an important precedent for proper resolution of electoral disputes and need to be taken into account by election administrations and courts. Read more… Source: gyla.ge

Tbilisi. The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association and the Social Justice Center consider that planned amendments to the Law of Georgia on Police unjustifiably increase the authority of police officers during identification of a person and create risks of unreasonable, disproportionate interference into private life of people. The organizations call on the Parliament of Georgia to avoid adoption of the discussed bill in the proposed form and legalization of vicious police practices. Read more… Source: gyla.ge

Tbilisi. As the Social Justice Center informs, the Supreme Court refused to provide statistical data on counterintelligence activities to the organization. “We were interested in how many people were subjected to covert eavesdropping and surveillance for counterintelligence purposes in recent years and for how long; what the rate of satisfying petitions submitted to the Supreme Court by the State Security Service was in this regard. The Social Justice Center will apply all available legal mechanisms to make sure the Supreme Court publicizes the above information”, - is stated on the website of the organization. Read more… Source: socialjustice.org.ge

Tbilisi. On October 11, 2021, the Georgian Young Lawyers' Association, together with the International Partnership for Human Rights - IPHR on the cases of the Rostomashvili Group submitted written opinions to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the fulfillment of the international obligations undertaken by the Georgian government, and on the cases of the Identoba Group submitted independently. In the submitted opinions, GYLA evaluates the general measures taken by Georgia for the enforcement of cases and, in addition, indicates the measures that need to be taken for the effective execution of cases. Read more… Source: gyla.ge

Tbilisi. Rights Georgia, the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, Social Justice Center, Georgian Democracy Initiative and the Human Rights Center, with the support of the Open Society Georgia Foundation, implement a joint project – “Legal aid network for activists”. The goal of the project is to protect civil activists from repressive measures and unlawful persecution carried out by the state, as well as to provide legal support to them. Read more… Source: The website of the organization on a social network

Tbilisi. The Human Rights Center has published an interim report: “Monitoring of trials of allegedly politically motivated cases”. “The interim report reflects results of monitoring of trials of allegedly politically motivated criminal and administrative cases that took place from February 1 to August 10, 2021. The report also incorporates results of monitoring of court hearings on the fact of attack on a media representative due to his professional activities (allegedly on political grounds)". Read more… Source:www.hrc.ge

Adjara. As Transparency International Georgia informs, with the help of lawyers of the organization, the Batumi City Court satisfied a lawsuit of Vazha Ananidze, annulled the order regarding his dismissal and reinstated him to work. “He will be remunerated in the amount of GEL 31 000 for loss of salary, while GEL 25 200 as a compensation in exchange for his reinstatement to the position of Associate Professor at the Maritime Academy”. Read more… Source: The website of the organization on a social network

Tbilisi. A new handbook - “Constitutional Justice” has been added to the online library of USAID-PROLoG - Promoting Rule of Law in Georgia Activity. Read more... Source: The website of the organization on a social network

Tbilisi. The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) has submitted an application to the Prosecutor General’s Office on behalf of 9 affected journalists demanding to investigate actions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs during developments that occurred on July 5-6. “Despite the fact that GYLA has been calling on the Prosecutor’s Office so far to assess how effectively mobilization of police forces was planned and implemented in order to avoid/prevent violent developments, the investigation in this regard still does not take place. Up to this time, the investigative body works just to reveal criminal acts committed by certain individuals, which is insufficient”. Read more… Source: gyla.ge

Tbilisi. On September 23, 2021, the Constitutional Court announced its decision in the case “Giorgi Tsertsvadze v. the Parliament of Georgia”. With this decision, the court satisfied the lawsuit and declared the disputed normative content of Article 33, Part 6, Subparagraph “a” of the Criminal Procedure Code of Georgia unconstitutional. The disputed norm gave the Chief Prosecutor of Georgia or a person entitled by him the authority to seize a criminal case from one investigative body, despite the investigative subordination, and transfer it to another body that was compromised by the reasonable complaint filed against its employee (police officer) due to the fact of encroachment on the right guaranteed by Article 9, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution. In the opinion of the plaintiff, mentioned authority endangered independence of the investigation and was not limited by guiding principles. Read more… Source: The website of the organization

Tbilisi. Social Justice Center, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Rule of Law in Georgia (USAID / PROLoG) project, releases a study on Access to Justice in Georgia.  The study conducted by Social Justice Center in 2020-2021 years has revealed that access to justice in Georgia has many dimensions. The main problem is the fact that the state does not have a unified vision in regard to the improvement of access to justice and fails to pursue effective policies in this regard. Read more… Source: The website of the organization

Tbilisi. The Tolerance and Diversity Institute publishes a research – “Racial profiling in Georgia – Existing policies and practices of the police system towards ethnic minorities and migrants”. “The problem of racial profiling is current in the daily activities of police institutions in different countries. The police often use human visual characteristics and other personal data while performing routine procedures. In such a case, there occurs a risk that this data may make given group of society more relevant for the police, i.e. police officers may pay more attention to people with certain visual characteristics, unconditionally considering them as those posing increased risk”, - is stated in the introductory part of the research, - “The present research is the first that aims to study the current practice of racial profiling in Georgia based on experiences of police officers, migrants and ethnic minorities. We hope that this research will make a significant contribution to launching of public debates on the issue of racial profiling, while it will help the state to pursue appropriate policies”. Read more… Source: The website of the organization