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Court Made Clarifications about the Impact of the Amnesty Law on Drug-Crimes

February 8, 2013
Tbilisi City Court made clarification about the impact of the Amnesty Law on drug crimes. Speaker judge Eka Areshidze made the following statement.

“In accordance to the Article 8 of the Law of Georgia on Amnesty passed on December 28, 2012, a person, who was convicted under Article 260 of the Criminal Code of Georgia (illicit preparation, production, purchase, storage, transportation, sending or realization of narcotic substances, or its analogue or precursors), shall be discharged from criminal liability and punishment; a person convicted for a crime punishable by Article 261 Part III or/and IV (illicit preparation, production, purchase, storage, transportation, sending or realization of psychotropic substances, its analogue or strong substances) will be discharged from the punishment if his/her action is not qualified as drug-dealing; besides that the person shall not be previously convicted for premeditated crime except drug-crime that is not qualified as drug-dealing either.

Despite criminal record, a person, who has committed crime punishable under Article 273 of the CCG (illicit preparation, purchase, storage of narcotic substance for personal use or illicit use of drugs without doctor’s prescription) will also be discharged from criminal liability and punishment.

As for the Article 13 of the Law on Amnesty, this article deals with the cases when a person is convicted or accused through aggregation of punishments under Article 260, Article 262 of the CCG that is illicit import of narcotic substances, its analogue or precursor to Georgia, or illicit export or international transit of the same substances from Georgia. The people convicted under Article 260 will be completely amnestied from criminal liability despite their criminal record but people convicted under Article 262 will have their terms reduced at 1/4 under amnesty.

Article 14 of the Amnesty Law provides the same procedures in case of aggregation of punishments under Articles 261 and 263 on psychotropic and strong substances; in similar situation the person will be completely discharged from the punishment under Article 261 but will have its sentenced reduced at ¼ in case of Article 263.

By February 2013, 22 585 amnesty applications were filed to the Tbilisi City Court; among them 8 307 amnesty cases were sent form the penitentiary establishments, 13 296 cases from probation bureau and 982 amnesty cases on the sought people from Prosecutor’s Office.

At this stage, the Court has discussed 5 516 amnesty cases and forwarded them relevant penitentiary establishment and probation bureau.

The Law of Georgia on Amnesty passed on December 28, 2012 affected almost every accused and convicted person, who had allegedly committed crime before October 2, 2012 except the people convicted for life imprisonments,” the statement reads.

Interpresnews 

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