“Tendency Has Changed but Problems Are Still Many” – Young Lawyers Evaluated Human Rights Protection in 2014

Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi 

Illegal and politically motivated dismissals from public agencies; facts of discrimination on religious grounds; violence during detentions; intimidation facts by police officers and force used against citizens; legislation that creates problems for people – lawyers of the Kutaisi office of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association discussed these and some other issues during their meeting with the representatives of media and nongovernmental organizations. 

The lawyers believe that despite pre-election promises and changed ruling power, human rights situation in the country is not perfect. Illegal and politically motivated dismissals of employees from public agencies, municipal boards and district administrations continue. There are miscarriages in the Georgian legislation, among them in the local self-governance law.

“On December 12, 2013 nongovernmental organizations signed cooperation memorandum with the Parliament of Georgia. On the same day we submitted recommendations about the Code on Self Governance to the legislative body. Unfortunately, our recommendations were not considered. If they had, we would have had more effective mechanism of self governance than we have now. The recommendations referred to the staff-list. We offered the Parliament to determine the number of staff-members according to the number of population in the relevant district; in similar situation we would have avoided the chaos which we have now,” program director of the GYLA’s Kutaisi office Nodar Jikia said. He also spoke about the recommendations on sociable payments; current government did not accept the regulations proposed by the CSOs about financial decentralization of the country.

“First of all, serfdom must be eradicated in local self-governmental bodies,” the meeting participants said, who also drew attention on the use of excessive power by police officers against citizens.

Giorgi Chikaberidze, head of GYLA’s Kutaisi office, clarified that several persons applied to the GYLA in 2014, who claimed that police officers verbally and physically abused them, planted guns or drugs on them or forced to admit non-committed crimes.

“These facts were often covered by media sources. GYLA systematically addressed to law enforcement bodies and requested effective investigation into those facts. However, it must be admitted that effective investigation, and holding the perpetrator adequately responsible for the crime is still a problem,” Giorgi Chikaberidze said and underlined ineffective operation of the prosecutor’s office; he believes establishment of independent investigative mechanism can resolve the problem.

“Transparency and impartiality of the activities of the prosecutor’s office has been problematic for the past year too. GYLA believes that Georgian legislation does not guarantee political impartiality of the prosecutor’s office. We have questions about alleged political motives of the investigations into some cases that undermines the reputation of this important institution. GYLA sees establishment of the independent investigative mechanism as the resolution of the problem, which will ensure effective investigation of the alleged violence fact committed by law enforcement officers,” Chikaberidze said.

He added that that tendency of human rights protection was changed in the country but problems are still many. Law on the Protection of Personal Data is still a problem, according to which MIA hold one key and Inspector for the Protection of Personal Data hold the second one. “We request to remove the so-called key from the MIA. Many amendments were introduced to the law through active engagement of CSOs but final decision was made against people. Online space was left without control,” Giorgi Chikaberidze said.

He announced about different activities which aim to make the aforementioned law “healthier”. According to Chikaberidze, in parallel to filing lawsuit to the Constitutional Court of Georgia, the CSOs will organize campaigns throughout the country until the practice of illegal surveillance is combated.