Human Rights Center Addresses to the Government of Georgia With Regard to Legal Problems of Aliens in Georgia

Human Rights Center calls on the Government of Georgia to get interested in the legal status of aliens and make the ground of non-granted residence documents available for them. 

From September 1, 2014, for the regulation of immigration process, new Law on Legal Status of Aliens and State Less Citizens went in force. The Law regulates entry, stay in, transit and leave Georgia. The main principles of the law are: family unity, inadmissibility of discrimination, principle of non-expulsion, protection of best interests of a child. Nevertheless, on the one hand we have principles ensured by the law and on the other hand conditions of their implementation.

A lot of aliens apply to Human Rights Center for help lately, who were refused to receive residence permit in Georgia. Mostly the ground of refusal is conclusion issued by the authoritative agency which states that a person cannot stay in Georgia due to state and/or public security interests. The authoritative agency is the Counter-Intelligence Department of MIA, whose conclusion usually consists of only several sentences and finalizes with the verdict: “Counter-Intelligence Department believes it is not reasonable to grant residence permit to the applicant person.”

The parties are not informed about the “arguments” which were mentioned in the conclusion of the Counter Intelligence Department (CID). Though the State Service Development Agency at the Ministry of Justice of Georgia does not pay attention to this fact and refuses aliens to temporarily live in Georgia. Another problem is that neither court queries about the arguments. The Courts rely on the Article 6 of the Law of Georgia on the Activities of CID, which states that activities of the CID are secret. Documents, materials and other data providing information about the CID activities have Top Secret status and cannot be used for judiciary purposes except the cases regulated by the Georgian law.

Several foreign citizens, who are married to Georgian citizens, applied to Human Rights Center for help. They have children, who go to Georgian schools and wish to live in Georgia. Consequently, when Ministry of Justice refuses them to stay in Georgia, the families have to choose – either divorce or migrate to another country. In fact, the State forces its citizens to split up a family – fathers have to go to their native countries and mothers have to stay in Georgia together with their children. It is violation of family unity and nobody has right to interfere in personal lives of people. Moreover, there is a case law of the European Court of Human Rights built up based on the examples of other countries.

Human Rights Center addresses to:

Ministry of Justice to review the working practice of the State Service Development Agency and issue only well-grounded refusal to the applicants of temporary residence in Georgia.

Counter-Intelligence Department of MIA to provide the State Services Development Agency with real information and issue well-argumented refusal on residence permits to aliens.

To Parliament and Government of Georgia to get interested in legal status of aliens in Georgia in order to make grounds for the refusal available for foreign citizens and amend the law, as well as the practice, so that to eradicate facts of human rights violation and discrimination of aliens in Georgia. 

Human Rights Center