IDPs won trial against the Ministry of IDPs

Lado Bitchashvili, Shida Kartli

Several IDP families still live in the building of the Hotel Kartli in Gori. They are the families, who could not receive flats in the recently constructed residential buildings for IDPs in Gori. One of them is Tsisana Tabatadze, who fled from Tskhinvali in 1990s. She expected to get the flat but finally the Ministry of IDPs refused. Tsisana Tabatadze said that she was not at home, when representatives of the monitoring service of the Ministry examined the IDP families in the hotel Kartli. 

“When I returned back, the representatives of the monitoring service were examining other IDP families in the hotel. I asked them to come to my room too but they did not come,” Tabatadze said.

In accordance to the protocol #99 of the Commission on IDP Issues, Tsisana Tabatadze was refused to get long-term accommodation because she has alternative house. The protocol is dated by December 20, 2017. Based on this protocol, on February 7, 2018 the Minister of Refugees and IDPs Sozar Subari issued the edict # 256 with the same ruling. 

According to the conclusion of the monitoring service of the Ministry, Tsisana Tabatadze has alternative house in Variani village, Gori municipality. Tabatadze does not agree with the conclusion and states that her elderly mother lives in Variani, where she goes to visit the mother. She does not live there permanently. “I lost house in Tskhinvali and never received any compensation from the state,” Tabatadze said.

She added the flats in the new buildings were distributed among IDPs unfairly and she applied to the Shida Kartli office of Human Rights Center for help.

HRC lawyer Aleksi Merebashvili said the Ministry was unfair with Tsisana Tabatade and he mentioned the judgment of the court, according to which the Ministry of IDPs was ordered to re-consider the case of Tabatadze.

“With the judgment of the Tbilisi City Court, our allegation was shared and the court concluded that visit in the flat is not enough to estimate whether the person really lives in that address or not. Consequently, Tsisana Tabatadze’s appeal was satisfied, the edict of the Minister was annulled based on which the applicant was refused to get a long-term accommodation and the Ministry was ordered to issue a new act as a result of reconsideration of her case,” Aleksi Merebashvili said. 

IDP from Tskhinvali Tina Kvaghinadze also sued the Ministry of IDPs in the court and won the trial; according to the judgment, the Ministry has already satisfied her with the accommodation. 

“When the IDP Minister Sozar Subari arrived here to distribute the flats, I expected him to announce my name as we were on the list too. However, the ceremony finished without receiving the key. I called the hotline of the Ministry and they told me we could not receive flat at this stage. When I appealed the court, we found out that the ministry had information that we had an alternative house that is not true; the representative of the Ministry could not prove it in the court. Consequently, based on the decision of the court we received a flat,” Tina Kvaghinadze said.

Representatives of the Shida Kartli regional offices of the Human Rights Center and Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association state that the monitoring service of the IDP Ministry act unfairly and the court proceedings also proved this tendency.

The IDPs living in the hotel Kartli and Turbaza in Gori, who were refused to get a flat, started litigation against the Ministry and majority of them won trials. However, before being closed, the Ministry appealed the first instance judgments in the Appeal Courts.