Coalition for an Independent and Transparent Judiciary Appeals to the Parliament of Georgia

The Coalition for an Independent and Transparent Judiciary responds to the bill initiated by the Ministry of Justice on jury participation in the discussion of cases of particularly high public interest.

According to the bill, the qualification of “high public interest” is related to the status of the accused; interest is high if the accused is a public official as mentioned in Article 2 of the Law of Georgia on Conflict of Interest and Corruption in Public Agencies who occupied or still occupies a high position, as well any person who is accused of having committed a crime with such an official.

The Coalition considers this initiative in relation with another bill that is currently being discussed at the Ministry of Justice and that will innovatively regulate the right of the accused to decline the involvement of a jury. According to this initiative, the accused can solicit to have his or her case discussed without jury participation. However, the success of this solicitation is directly connected to the prosecutor’s decision. Unless the prosecutor accepts the solicitation, the judge can refuse to satisfy it, and court juries will discuss the case. It is noteworthy that in the proposed bill, unlike the accused, the prosecutor is not obliged to solicit a similar request, meaning that even if the accused requests to forgo the court jury’s involvement, the prosecutor’s refusal would allow the juries to discuss the case.

The Coalition believes that the two aforementioned bills should be evaluated in close relation with each other and that all risks that might be connected with the discussion of such cases by court juries should be considered. The society has already formed its opinion about criminal cases in which former senior officials were participants. On that front, it is believed that the participation of court juries in such cases contains some risks regarding the quality of the procedures. To avoid risks, the accused should have the right to decline the participation of court juries in the discussion of his or her case, based on a well-grounded solicitation.

However, the Coalition does not call for the discussion of complicated economic crimes, like the legalization of illegal revenues, by juries. The Coalition thinks that an analysis of existing practices in Georgia will become grounds for the increase of the competence of court juries and for turning it into obligatory instrument. However, since the analysis cannot be done because of insufficient means, participation of juries in cases involving every article of the criminal code might damage the interests of the judiciary.

Based on the aforementioned information, the Coalition believes that whilst preliminary dissemination of public opinion might acquire a serious scope, the selection process of jury members will not compensate for the restricted right of the accused to decline the involvement of court juries. Hence, the Coalition concludes that cases of particularly high public interest, including cases on former senior officials, should be discussed by court juries only if the accused has the right to raise solicitation on their being declined. Otherwise, the Coalition foresees some risks in the proper exercise of the judiciary with regard to the aforementioned people.

We hope that the reasonableness of the bill will become a topic of wider discussion, and we are ready to support it.