Roman Gventsadze: “I Like Vano Merabishvili but I Cannot Understand the Idea of the “Reasonable Doubt”
October 7, 2010
Lali Papaskiri, Magazine “Rating”
“Georgia has not had such a strong minister of internal affairs since 1990s. Vano Merabishvili is the cleverest and strongest person of all ministers I know; he is even better than I was -I once said it and one oppositionist commented on my words: Roman Gventsadze praises Merabishvili because he promoted his son and released his grandson from prison. It is not correct. My son still occupies the same position and my grandson is still in prison,” said former minister of internal affairs of Georgia Roman Gventsadze who likes the current law enforcement system though he does not avoid criticizing of the mistakes too.
‘I do not know whether they will add something in future but nowadays there is nothing exaggerated in the authorities of the police. Everything is transparent and we all see that the situation is much better than it was several years ago. We can walk along the street and park a car quite easily. People are not kidnapped. In one word, the number of crimes has reduced. The rights which the law enforcement bodies have are not exaggerated at all; everything is very fair… For some time, the police had no rights at all and the number of crimes increased seriously. I do not say that police should be allowed to breach rights but the system is changing for better.
-Although I cannot say the same about the MIA, the corruption is a common thing in many governmental institutions though only among high ranking officials…
-I think that some people just rumor about it. If somebody takes bribes, then they are detained for it.
-Do not you think that plea-agreement is kind of corruption? People have to pay huge sums.
-I also changed plea-bargain into a plea-agreement when I was in office… you know everything cannot be improved in one day. The situation will improve gradually and we will live in the time when we will not need plea-agreement anymore and the laws will be more loyal. Today, everything is correct and effective.
-Specialists often speak that mostly the laws are not correct; for example the new initiative, the so-called search based on the reasonable doubt…
-I do not agree with the search of a person based on the reasonable doubt either. To tell the truth, I cannot understand the idea of the “reasonable doubt”… Similar things did not happen when I was minister but if we saw anything doubtful, the person was already suspected and we detained him on this ground… If he was not guilty, we used to apologize to him and set him free. Now, a police officer should start thinking whether the passer-by is an offender or not and then act according to his doubts?! The number of crimes has reduced recently and the police do not need to have their rights increased. If a police officer sees a drug-addict under influence, he would not need to think about it - he will detain him and take to a drug-center. There has been order in the streets recently and police officers really do not need to stop somebody in the streets only based on some doubts… during the soviet time we used to start raid in the streets, blocked the city and searched everybody – men, women, cars and carriages. Nowadays, I do not see any necessity to introduce new tools for more control.
-How do you think, why does the government need it?! Maybe they have invented a new method to get more money for the state budget?
-I cannot say anything. It is fact that there is no necessity of it. The deed of the patrol police shall be properly valued.
-You had to live and work during the three governments in Georgia. We often hear the statements that nowadays we are developing a police state instead a democratic one; what can you say about it?
-This is exaggeration of the real situation. When reforms are going on in the country, the law enforcement institutions should be very strict. We cannot bring up children by patting only; sometimes we have to punish them. So, if we want to develop our country, there should be some strict rules but in the framework of the law.
-Mr. Roman, don’t you think that the fines are too high and inadequate to the current income of the population; for example car-owners have to pay 50 GEL for car-parking per month…
-I agree with you; I am against it because the people have hard life. The fuel is also expensive and people almost starve; consequently, the government should avoid high fines… I do not like the new rules about the seat-belts because it can kill a person instead saving him. God save everybody but if a fire breaks out in the car, he will be burnt before unties the belt… There are so many traffic jams in the city and nobody drives too fast.
-The most funds go to the MIA from the state budget. But there are other, more serious problems in the country…
-Yes, I fully understand it and it is very nice that police officers have high salaries. That’s why they do not take bribes… When I started working, my salary was 120 rubles; then when I was promoted my salary increased up to 220 rubles. That time ruble had much higher rate than our lari today; however, I could not keep the family with the salary. Despite that, nobody can blame me in accepting the bribe but if a patrol police officer has a salary of 100 GEL, he will definitely take a bribe; otherwise they would not wish to work there. Nowadays, a lot of people want to work in the patrol police…
-I want to ask you about secret listening. You did not listen to people during your authority but now many crimes are resolved based on this method and people are blamed in serious crimes as a result of it…
-We did not listen to people. Police was not allowed to listen to people but sometimes we did it. We used “liter 1” which meant switching on the telephone; and “liter 2” which meant installment of deaf-aids but we had to get permission from the security department first… we could not install similar apparatus in the prison cells either. I can say the same about the installment of secret video-cameras but I do not see anything bad in this action. Just the opposite, the law allows the police officers to use secret deaf-aids and it makes their labor easier.
-What do you think; how close is the level of your time police officers to the current police officers?
-Now we have more qualified police officers. They know computer, they know English … Their material-technical base is much higher. The new police stations are being opened almost every day while we could not even renovate our old stations… the only thing they have from the past is the truncheon; but it will always remain in the police… it is a joke of course.
See the full version of the interview in Georgian language: http://www.ambebi.ge/samartali/26632-qvano-merabishvili-dzalian-momtsons-magram-gonivruli-etcvis-shinaarsi-ver-gavigeq.html#ixzz11eUXWosh
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