SOD Breached Constitution, Criminal and General Administrative Code and Ethic Code of Police

Lawyer Giorgi Gotsiridze from Young Lawyers Association assessed the oppression on newspaper “Batumelebi” by MIA in his interview with Human Rights Centre.

“GYLA condemns illegal activity against the journalist of newspaper “Batumelebi” Tedo Jorbenadze by officials of Adjara department of the SOD within MIA on 25 November 2009.”

“According to GYLA, the threat against the journalist to spread photos or video-recordings about his sexual orientation is violation of fundamental rights.”

“According to Article 20, Paragraph I of the Constitution of Georgia, everyone’s private life, place of personal activity, personal records, correspondence, communication by telephone or other technical means, as well as messages received through technical means shall be inviolable. 

Additional guarantees for inviolability of private life and secrets are envisaged in the Article 43 “b” of the Administrative Code of Georgia; it states that, a public agency shall not allow collection, processing, storage, or disclosure of personal data relating to a person’s affiliation with any religious, sexual, or ethnic group, or his political beliefs or worldviews.”

In parallel to it, according to the Ethic Code on Police, “a policeman shall violate private life of a person only in case of absolute necessity; it shall be done in accordance to law and is dedicated to achieve lawful goal.”

According to GYLA, policemen blatantly breached the law and more precisely they used violence. In addition to that, they abused power through degrading personal dignity of journalist Tedo Jorbenadze.
 
Gela Mtivlishvili