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Sozar Subari: Government Should Be Informed about Blocking Streets 5 Days Earlier

April 2, 2009

Tbilisi City Hall has not received a notice from the opposition yet about holding a protest demonstration on April 9 yet.

In the interview to Medianews, Zviad Dzidziguri, member of the Conservative Party, said that it had not been decided yet whether the opposition would send the notice to Tbilisi City Hall.

According to Sozar Subari, the Public Defender, in case of a notice, if the protest demonstrations do not grow into aggression, blocking the streets is not considered as an abrogation of the constitution.

In the interview to the Medianews, Sozar Subari said that the Georgian Statute provides the right to block traffic, if there is a notice of upcoming demonstrations.
 
“What is necessary is the notification of the government. However, Georgian legislation defines that if the assembling contradicts to the requirements of the law, such as blocking of traffic the government has the right to clear the road. In order to estimate what is illegal in similar cases we should apply to the decisions of the European Court because we are part of the European Convention and the case law of the European Court is applicable to Georgia,” said Subari.

The Public Defender spoke about a precedent in Turkey. “The European Court decided in regard to several cases, among them a case that occurred in Turkey, that police used excessive force to free the street during the demonstration; consequently, the police breached the right to assembling and manifestation. However, the demonstrators had not warned the government about the manifestation. So, if we use this precedent the European Court will define the right to free assembling and manifestation better than our legislation,” stated Sozar Subari.

The Public Defender of Georgia said that their office is fully mobilized to monitor the demonstrations on April 9.

Source: Medianews

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