Deceived Workers Demand Justice (The End)

On February 9 2006, the City Court concluded that those 135 people, who were mentioned in previous two parts, really worked for “Viraji”. The Appeal Court claims the opposite. The victims cannot understand which of the court instances is mistaken and which they should trust.

The fact that those people really worked for Viraji is confirmed by one of the former directors for the company, Zurab Doghonadze. Another fact that proves the situation is some workers still work for the legal heir of company.

The victims were not satisfied with the decision of the last court instance and appealed against the verdict on October 31 2006 at the Supreme Court. According to the Judge Sulkhanishvili’s verdict, the case discussion was conducted in the absence of the parties at the trial. The accusers are against the verdict because of the situation. They applied to the Public Defender’s Office for help. “Under these circumstances, the case cannot be discussed unbiased and the court cannot understand the importance of their problems.  You cannot seize workers’ salaries. The workers have no more way out but find illegal methods to get their salaries back-seizing the equipments or some other valuable things from the administration office,” stated the letter to the Public Defender.

On December 20 2006, lawyer Mitrofane Sturua sent a letter to the Judge Sulkhanishvili at the Supreme Court, where he tried to assure him to conduct the trial in the presence of both parties. On December 21 he received a reply. “The judge is on a holiday since December 1, 2006 to January 1, 2007.  Thus, your appeal will be sent to the judge after he returns back from his holiday.”

The Human Rights Center tried to find out the reason why the case is not discussed at the court hearing. Nana Vasadze, the chief of the Public Relations Department of the Supreme Court, said in her conversation with the center, that “Under the Civil Procedural Code, Article 408, section III, Cassation Court can pass a verdict without oral hearing. In this case, under the law, the judge can pass a verdict without hearing if the case is not particularly complicated. It should also point out that the Cassation Court discusses the legal causes of the crime and the presence of the parties at the court hearing is not always necessary.”

Afterwards, Human Rights Center tried to hear the comments on the situation form the representatives of the “Roads Construction Company, Ltd.” It took nearly a month to identify who was the head of the company. However, under certain circumstances, the meeting could not be arranged.
We got in touch with the office several times. Certain person, who did not tell us his name, said that he was an accountant for the company. As soon as I explained him the reason of my call, he said he did not know anything about it and added that there was nobody at the office but him. He neither gave me personal phone numbers of employees. Consequently, I left him my telephone number and asked to tell a lawyer or some other person to call me back regarding the topic.

I called him back on the next day; however he repeated me the same. Similar situation lasted during a week. After a week another person answered my call. He introduced himself as an accountant too. I explained him once more the reason of my call and he told me to call the director of the company, Giorgi Rogava. Finally, I got through Rogava and gave him similar explanations. He agreed to meet me after a several conversation over the phone. Some time before the meeting he called me and said he could not meet me for he had some problems. After that I called him on his personal number in vain.

Subsequently, I tried to get in touch with another representative of the company. Workers told me that they had direct contact with one of the directors, Koba Lekveishvili. I learned his phone number and called him. He told me over the phone that he had nothing to do with the situation. He also said that he had no debts and nobody demands him to pay money.

As a result, I could not get any comment on the situation from the representatives of the company.

Afterwards, I got in touch with the Financial Police. The workers of the Miraji applied to the Western Georgia’s Regional Financial Police Department two years ago. The investigator on the case is Davit Cheishvili.

Officials from the Financial Police explained me that they could not say anything in the interest of investigation. However, the workers said that the roads are repaired and it can serve as a proof of the implemented work. There are victims and the case does not need much effort to investigate anything. They said that the investigation has taken wrong direction and does not focus on case materials. The Financial Police is carrying out investigation on the activities of a certain person and not the relationship of the Viraji and Georgian Roads Construction, Ltd.  Unless the truth is found out in the nearest future, the workers said that the only way to resolve the problem for them is to damage the repaired road by those equipments what they had used while repairing the roads.

Eka Gulua