Tbilisi City Court – Different Approach to Equal Cases

Tbilisi City Court accepted the lawsuit on degrading and insulting of Deacon Giorgi Mamaladze against the lawyer of the Georgian Patriarchate Edisher Karchava but rejected the application of Human Rights Center on similar case against senior government officials. 

Human Rights Center appealed the Tbilisi City Court against the senior government officials and requested reimbursement of the moral damage for degrading and insulting Deacon Giorgi Mamaladze through violation his presumption of innocence. The Tbilisi City Court rejected the lawsuit based on different grounds, which was repeatedly submitted to the court after making some changes in it. Based on June 26 decision, the Tbilisi City Court again rejected the lawsuit for another ground – requested to repeatedly pay the court excise duty. 

In parallel to that, the Tbilisi City Court accepted the lawsuit against Edisher Karchava, which also referred to the degrading statements, and the applicants requested to pay the compensation for moral damage. Consequently, the applicant had to pay only one excise duty. 

Article 41 Part 2 of the Civil Procedural Code clarifies if along with a non–property dispute a property dispute arising from it is considered, the price of the subject matter of dispute shall be determined according to the claim with higher value. Consequently, we believe it is ungrounded from the side of the Tbilisi City Court to demand double-payment of the excise duty from the applicant and we have already appealed the decision at the Tbilisi Appeal Court.

Law enforcement bodies shall establish equal practice, promote effective defense of applicant’s rights and defend the right to fair trial. The court aims to defend the breached rights of every individual. No applicant of the court shall have feeling of injustice and the court shall allow anyone to restore his/her breached rights.

Human Rights Center believes the application is artificially blocked because it is against the senior officials of the Government of Georgia.

We address the Appeal Court to discuss the application and pass lawful and fair decision because it is inadmissible that the court had different approaches towards equal cases and demand the applicants to pay the excise duty twice while it is regulated by the Civil Procedure Code of Georgia.

Human Rights Center