On 17 September 2018 at the Information center on NATO and EU (Address: Tbilisi, 2/1 Shalva Dadiani Str.) GDI is conducting the presentation of the final results of monitoring of implementation of the Human Rights Strategy and Action Plan (chapter I- Criminal Justice, chapter II- Right to Fair Trial, chapter III- Prosecutor’s Office ) for 2016-2017. GDI is also presenting the special website- www.hrm.org.ge created within the frames of the project, as well as the methodology based on which the report was prepared.
The meeting is held in the frames of the week of the results of Monitoring of 2016-2017 Human Rights Strategies and Action Plans that non-governmental organization are presenting.
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The monitoring has revealed the following trends:
Chapter I – Criminal Justice
Despite the fact that the implementation of part of the activities envisaged by the 2014-2015 Action Plan did not happen, unfortunately, 2016-2017 Action Plan did not reflect such directions as strengthening the principles of adversarial process and equality and the jurors’ court reform.
Out of the 13 activities related to criminal justice, 6 concern legislative amendments. In the timeframe defined by the Action Plan, not only were the amendments not initiated, but also they were not even approved by the government. The activities concerned the following issues:
Strengthening legislative regulations on the admissibility of indirect evidence;
Strengthening / improving the rights of victims;
Complete revision of the Criminal Code;
Combating hate motivated crimes;
Initiating the new Code of Administrative Offenses;
Discontinuing administrative imprisonment and creation of a unified system of monetary penalties.
Chapter II - Right to Fair Trial
The chapter II of the National Human Rights Action Plan is, as a whole, in compliance with the challenges in the judiciary system and provides for a number of issues that have been subject to criticism by the local and international organizations over the years.
Despite the 2 years term, the activities that remain unfulfilled are still the subject to criticism from local civil society and international organizations. Namely these are:
Introduction of transparent and objective criteria for selecting the judges;
Development of criteria for promoting judges;
Improvement of periodic evaluation system of judges' activities;
Improvement of the basis for disciplinary liability of judges.
The state agency responsible for unfulfilled activities is mostly the High Council of Justice.
Chapter III – Prosecutor’s Office
The National Human Rights Action Plan did not take into account such issues as:
Increasing independence of the Prosecutor’s office;
Creating system of open, transparent and accountable Public Prosecutor's Office;
Increasing independence of individual Prosecutor’s activities, etc.
Some rather important activities either have not been performed or have been performed with deficiencies, namely:
Publication of reports on human rights violations;
Introduction of Prosecutor’s Evaluation System;
Analysis of crimes committed in terms of establishing effective criminal justice policy and etc.
This report was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The report was prepared under grants provided by East-West Management Institute’s (EWMI) program “Promoting Rule of Law in Georgia" (PROLoG), together with the Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF). The contents of this report are the sole responsibility of the author organizations and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Government, the United States Agency for International Development, East-West Management Institute, or the Open Society Georgia Foundation.
