Judge from Rustavi Missed One Red Five

Public servant was not fined for election agitation materials placed in his working room

Manon Bokuchava, Kvemo Kartli

On August 9, Human Rights Center discovered one small poster with the National Movement’s election number 5 and large poster of the same political party in the working room of the head of Military Office at the Rustavi self-government body. The large poster is photo of the President and elderly people; at the bottom of it there is a slogan together with Number 5: “Georgia without Poverty.”

We wrote an article about this issue on humanrights.ge - Red Fives in Working Rooms of Rustavi Self-government, Military Registration and Recruiting Service.

After the article was published, head of Rustavi District Election Commission Soso Shvelidze got in touch with us and said Interagency Task Force got interested in the fact and requested evidence from the Human Rights Center to prove that agitation materials really were placed in the working room of the public servant.

We brought audio-recording of the interview to the DEC where the public servant clearly answered our question – why he had posters of a political party in the working room, and head of Military Office Mindia Aptsiauri replied: “How did I know that the National Movement would have same election number 5 this time too? There is a big hole in the wall and I covering it with the poster. Bring me something better and I will replace it.”

“Rustavi DEC appealed to the court regarding this fact and requested to fine Mindia Aptsiauri with 1 000 lari. However, Judge Ekaterine Partenishvili did not satisfy our appeal. Now, we will discuss this issue with the CEC and decide to appeal the decision at the higher court or not,” chairman of the Rustavi DEC Soso Shvelidze said.

On September 3, Rustavi City Court forwarded its decision regarding number 5 to the parties. The resolution part of the verdict reads that Mindia Aptsiauri is right; he does not deny presence of the poster in his working room but he has not breached the law.

The judgment reads: “Court concluded that photo-illustration with the inscription “National Movement-Democrats”, number 5 and Mikheil Saakashvili was really placed in Mindia Aptsiauri’s working room.

Court clarifies that National Movement – Democrats is no longer participating in the upcoming parliamentary elections. It is not registered and is completely different subject which participated in the Parliamentary Elections of 2004. In 2004, National Movement and Free Democrats unified and participated in the Parliamentary Elections of 2004.

This election bloc does not exist nowadays. Consequently, existence of number 5 on the poster does not mean that Mindia Aptsiauri has placed agitation materials of the political party which has election number 5 in the upcoming elections and was carrying out pre-election campaign in the prohibited place.”

Consequently, according to the logic of the Rustavi City Court, when a citizen enters the working room of the public servant, he/she shall realize that it is not poster of the United National Movement but completely different party. Judge Ekaterine Partenishvili might believe or was compelled to believe that president and number 5 are not associated with the National Movement at all.

One more interesting issue is that one significant detail disappeared from the case. Article on humanrights.ge mentioned two posters; and only number five was circled on one of the posters and neither National Movement-Democrats nor UNM were written on it. Both agitation materials were places next to each other on the wall.

Court did not consider the second poster at all. However, audio-materials provided to the court by the Human Rights Center mentioned the second poster too.

Head of Rustavi DEC said he had visited Aptsiauri after reading the article but he found only one poster on the table in his working room which was already removed from the wall.