Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi
Attorneys in Kutaisi have expressed their position about forbidding cameras at the court while trial. Most local lawyers consider that the government will not change its mind and the quality of court proceeding and justice will only turn to worse. The term “Impartial Court” should become even more unreal and Georgia will become a state that can only prosecute and all will be found guilty. The attorneys announced today that everything happened just as they had expected. Governors have bribed the court and justice shows.
Kutaisi will join the protest action which was initiated by highest ruling body of the profession with the demand for Georgian courts to be impartial. This means that about 4000 acting attorneys in Georgia will go on strike.
“The Bar Association in Georgia is a powerful structure enough and understands what power it has. It would be better to express protest against injustice by the entire pool of the attorney corps and not just selected persons. There are also many claims that judges are not serious and do not even honor count verdicts. The numbers of cases are many and not just isolated instances. Decisions are often made that are not rooted in law and not based on the facts to the case. All attorneys must feel that they have been violated when the dignity and professionalism of one of us is humiliated. It is really a disaster when only political and never judicial verdicts are passed in our country as the standard. Every person is guaranteed with the right to defense. And this right should be real and not just on paper. This will be the largest and strongest protest thus far. Neither prosecutor’s office nor the court means anything without attorneys. International society will assess it a black mark on our country and what now exists damages our image in the building of democracy and civil society. It is shameful that there is no law and people have appeal to Strasbourg Court all the time to get real justice,” said Evgeni Omanadze, a member of the Bar Association.
Ana Chafidze, a member of the Bar Association also joins with the protest and supports its justification. She thinks that “we should focus on criminal crime. The role of the attorney in the defense is very much restricted. The role of the accused depends on the will of the Prosecutor’s Office. I mean plea-bargain which is mostly initiated by the Prosecutor. Unfortunately, the attorney’s position is not envisaged by the Prosecutor’s Office at all and what charges have been made by state prosecutor has not actually changed at all. Thus, I think the protest is timely and if it is very necessary I will also join it.”
Although they have not decided yet as what will be their role, lawyers for the Young Lawyers Association’s Kutaisi office state that an impartial and independent court system in Georgia does not exist.“ They claim that the current Criminal Procedural Code does not allow attorney to realize his/her own possibilities and work on a professional level,” said Giorgi Chikaberidze, one lawyer.
According to the Georgian legislation everybody has right to a defense. Lawyers from Kutaisi think that the strike will create some serious problems for the Prosecutor’s Office and Judiciary System because they actually act as both state prosecutors and the defense at the same time.
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