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Bachana Akhalaia’s Lawyer Cannot Read Trial Protocol

June 17, 2013
 
Salome Chkheidze

State sponsored attorney of Bachana Akhalaia did not have chance to read the protocols of the trials, where he did not participate. Sulkhan Komakhidze said he requested the protocol from the court but could not get it. The lawyer believes it created unequal conditions for the parties and breached the principle of judiciary compatibility.

The lawyer reminded the judge at the June 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and clarified that non-providing him with the information what was going on at previous trials contradicted the principle of fair trial.

Judge Giorgi Darakhvelidze clarified that Article 195 Part II of the Criminal Procedural Code judge and trial secretary sign the protocol within five days after the process finished. So, the court could not hand the unsigned protocols to the lawyer.

“The judge passed illegal decision when he refused me to read the protocol; any person, even non-familiar to the legal procedures, can easily understand it. I suggested him to follow the Article 190 of the Criminal Procedural Code which states that if case is discussed against two or more accused persons and lawyer of one of the accused persons does not appear at the trial, the Court can continue the case discussion with regard to other accused people; besides that, the Court shall provide the lawyer with the trial protocol, where the lawyer was absent. Judge Darakhvelidze had to act in accordance to the analogue of this article but he acted in the opposite way,” said Sulkhan Komakhidze.

He added that there is unequal practice with regard to this issue at the court: in some cases the judges upheld similar solicitations but decline them in other cases.

Komakhidze said if he does not have chance to read the protocol, he will not be able to prepare the final speech.

Lawyer Tamar Barsonidze, who monitors the trials on former senior officials in the frame of the Human Rights Center’s project, believes that judge had to give chance to the lawyer to read the protocol.

“It is evident that in order to perform effective defense activities, the lawyer needed full information about the process. It is necessary at least for the preparation of the speech. Besides that the law-maker wrote in the Article 190 that lawyer shall have access to study the protocol of the trial, which he had missed. Even if we considered this article with regard to only already involved lawyer, who missed the trial, the judge had to refer to it as an analogue because it regulates similar fact – when lawyer does not attend the trial. Judge’s statement that he could not act in accordance to this norm, was not inadequate,” Tamar Barsonidze said.

State sponsored attorney has been defending the former Minister Bachana Akhalaia after the latter refused to attend the trials in protest and refused his own lawyers to defend his rights. 

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