Ministry of Justice vs Foreign Citizens and Family Integrity of Georgian Citizens

Court relies on ungrounded data collected by Counter-Intelligence Department 

Giorgi Robakidze

State Services Development Agency at the Ministry of Justice does not allow foreign spouses of the citizens of Georgia to temporarily live in Georgia. The refusal of the Agency is grounded with the “conclusion” provided by the Counter-Intelligence Department (CID). Although the negative conclusion is not well-grounded, both the Ministry of Justice and Court rely on it when making decision, which in fact divides families. 

Our article is about a family story. What shall a family do, when its foreign member cannot receive a permit on residence from the state, or what shall a kid do, when she/he does not want to part with mother or father? Story of Marekh Jishiashvili started in Egypt 13 years ago.

Marekh Jishiashvili: “I went to Egypt as a tourist. Ibrahim lived in front of the hotel, where I was staying in. We soon understood each other. Upon return to Georgia, we continued correspondence and soon got married. Our child is already 11. He was born in Egypt; initially we lived there but two years ago arrived in Georgia.”

-Are you citizen of Georgia? 

-When I received citizenship of Egypt, both my son and I lost Georgian citizenship. Later, when I restored my citizenship, Ministry of Justice refused to give citizenship to my son. 

-Why did you decide to return to Georgia?

-I have all my close people here – mother, sister, relatives… my mother is already old and we decided to be with her. My son Samir goes to Georgian school.

-Does the child hold residence permission?

-Initially they refused to both son and father. But afterwards they granted permission to Samir but refused to Ibrahim. In the past, I received citizenship in Egypt without any problems and I cannot understand why Georgian authority creates so many problems about residence permission here. We have appealed to the court for the second time.

-What is the reason of their refusal?

- Information sent by the Counter-Intelligence Department

Bureaucratic Procedures

Initially the family applied to the State Services Development Agency at the Ministry of Justice to receive temporary residence for Ibrahim. They replied: “When discussing the application the Agency found grounds to refuse Ibrahim Muhamed Iaman Abdelgavad to grant permission in accordance to the Article 23 sub-paragraph “a” of the Law of Georgia on Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons. 

The aforementioned article of the law reads that an applicant may be denied the determination of the status of a stateless person in Georgia if there is a decision of an authorised body on the advisability of his/her residence in Georgia with regard to safeguarding state security and/or public safety. In this particular case, Counter-Intelligence Department is authorized body, which settled the fate of the family with one sentence in their letter to the Ministry of Justice – “Counter-Intelligence Department finds granting the permanent residential permission to the person inexpedient.” Usually, similar statements do not contain arguments but State Services Development Agency (SSDA) does not pay attention to it and refuses foreign citizens to grant temporary residence permits in Georgia.

Ibrahim Mohammed Yamani Abdelgavad appealed the decision of the Ministry of Justice at the court but neither judge could disobey the ungrounded notification of the CID. The family decided to continue procedures. This time, they applied for permanent residence permission for Ibrahim but the Ministry of Justice refused again. They appealed the second decision at the Tbilisi City Court and the judge again upheld the decision of the Ministry. Now the family has appealed to the Appeal Court.

Ibrahim Yamani Abdelgavad: “I would have lived more comfortably in my country; I had a good job there. I was a manager at a large company. However, after marriage Marekh’s father died in Georgia and it was a serious tragedy for her; she started worrying about her old mother, who is also sick. So we decided to arrive here and stay with her. In future we plan to return back to Egypt.”

Marekh Jishiashvili: “My mother’s life and health depends on our financial stability. If my husband has to leave Georgia, I will have to make a difficult choice – to abandon either mother or my family. It happens because certain governmental official in our country does not want to properly check information and uses easy solution of the problem – to refuse Ibrahim to temporarily live in Georgia.”

Discriminative Verdict against Three Persons

Family of Marekh and Ibrahim is not an exception in Georgia. Human Rights Center is studying cases of two more families with same problems.

Aleko Tskitishvili, executive director at Human Rights Center: “Foreign citizens always had problems in getting residence permissions in Georgia. People applied to us for help during previous government too. However, the scales of the problems have significantly increased now. It is obvious that the state uses rougher policy against foreign applicants. Previous government promised welfare to foreign businessmen to attract them to the country. Their promise mostly interested citizens of India, Egypt, Arabia, Pakistan and other African and Asian countries. They arrived here, purchased lands and started their cultivation. In most cases, they did not employ Georgian people and it caused discontent of local population. Lands were sold to foreign citizens in chaotic manner. Georgian citizens could not understand why their pastures were sold. Government changed and new state chose easternmost position and started persecution of those investors. In some cases they even seized lands from foreign people. Foreign businessmen had more conflicts with local farmers. Xenophobic approach towards them increased; locals perceived Indian and Chinese people arrived here to steal and take Georgian land to their countries. At the same time, country restricted acceptance of citizens of so-called third countries. Apparently, somebody decided in the lobbies of government to significantly restrict issuing residence permits to foreign citizens.

Nestan Londaridze, lawyer at Human Rights Center, advocate of Ibrahim Yamani Abdelgavad. Article 23 of the Law of Georgia on Aliens and Stateless Persons, which is often applied by the CID, has become sort of tool for their refusals. A person can be denied to receive residence permission if she/he is sought or has criminal record or is member of tourist organization or cannot show income, that can guarantee the state that he/she does not intend to stay in the country for thievery or begging. 

As for Ibrahim’s case, he is neither sought, nor member of terrorist organization nor had criminal past in his country. His wife is citizen of Georgia and they have a child. The son goes to a Georgian school. In fact, our state compels Georgian citizen Marekh Jishiashvili to abandon her family; father will go to his native country and mother with son will stay in Georgia. I doubt similar facts do not happen even in a non-democratic country. It is violation of family integrity that is very sensitive issue and nobody has right to blatantly interfere in the personal life of a person. Moreover, we have case law of the European Court of Human Rights on the issue (ex. Iusuph Karas vs Romania), when the Court directly obliged the state to protect family integrity. That means, our Court is also obliged to respect this obligation.”

Aleko Tskitishvili: “In our case, everything is connected with each other. First of all, Ministry of Justice is major violator in this case, which, though it is paradox, has initiated the anti-discrimination law. The Ministry is authorized to impartially study the case of any foreign citizen and issue well-grounded reply. Nevertheless, the Ministry automatically relies on the ungrounded “conclusion” of the CID and refuses a foreign citizen to temporarily stay in Georgia without any clarifications. With similar cases the Ministry itself uses discriminative policy and first of all it harms interests of Georgian citizens. Moreover, it is also noteworthy that mostly female citizens of Georgia become victims of the Ministry and CID. So we have two forms of discrimination – ethnic and gender.

-Do you mean that female foreign citizens, whose husbands are Georgian citizens, do not have similar problems?

-We have not received information about this problem yet. Apparently, Georgian men, who married foreign women, do not have similar problems. Maybe because their children are considered to be ethnic Georgians and it feeds local stereotypes “it does not threaten genetic fund of Georgian nation.”

-Neither EU nor USA citizens have similar problems 

-This is the main point that our state selects people. I want to underline that Ministry of Justice is the first violator because it is within their competence to issue permissions. All administrative acts issued by them must be well grounded. I had an opportunity to ask this question personally to Minister Thea Tsulukiani when we discussed anti-discriminative law in one of the meetings. I was surprised to hear her answer – the Ministry is not guilty in it and they rely on the information provided by the CID. That means, the Ministry does not study the application and relies only on the information provided by the CID. Consequently, CID is another guilty chain in this illicit situation. Of course, they also bear obligation to issue well-grounded information but instead they send only sheet of paper, which contains completely unverified judgment against citizens of Georgia and compels them to split family. It insults people like Ibrahim Yamani Abdelgavad. He arrived in Georgia to do business; he invested money in a café, pays taxes to the state budget and lives peaceful life in Georgia. Now he is ordered to return to his country. If his family cannot follow him, they will divorce. The fact that the court also relies on the information provided by the CID confirms that this problem is caused by state policy. Consequently, the judiciary system is also involved in this illegality. Those three institutions (Troika) – Ministry of Justice, Counter-Intelligence Department and Court easily and groundlessly divide families of Georgian citizens.”