Research of GYLA: “Analysis of Cases of Criminal and Administrative Offenses with Alleged Political Motive”

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Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association concluded the human rights series with the presentation of the research – “Analysis of Cases of Criminal and Administrative Offenses with Alleged Political Motive”.

A significant trend has been observed in the country for the last few years – detention of opposition parties significantly increased during politically tensed periods in the country. Consequently, society always wonders whether these procedures are politically motivated or not.

In 2011 GYLA published the monitoring report which listed cases and their analysis of the detention of people in relation with 2009 protest rallies. Monitoring revealed set of violations in the implementation of the justice.

As society already knows, several people were arrested after protest rallies against the government in May of 2011; those people participated in the rallies in different forms. GYLA again responded to public interest like it did with regard to events after 2009 protest rallies. In order to estimate whether those cases were studied in accordance to the Rule of Law and human rights, the organization studied 21 cases which involved 55 persons.

Analysis of the criminal cases exposed essential violation of the law and negative trends both from investigative bodies and the court that undermines the implementation of the justice. Namely, it revealed:

-activists of the opposition political parties were often arrested under the charge of illicit possession of firearms or narcotics or for the resistance to police;

-blatant violation of constitutional rights of the accused;

-incomplete investigation of the case;

-contradictory and invalid evidence;

-incorrect qualification of the crime;

-well-grounded doubt against the investigation and judiciary based on set of circumstances.

GYLA also revealed significant legislative gaps that shall be necessarily eradicated in order to conform to international standards of human rights and prepared concrete recommendations.

Alongside criminal cases, GYLA studied 12 cases of administrative offences. Violations and relevant trends were detected in the detention of people, court procedures and during the placement of people in temporary detention settings. Namely they were:

-blatant violations of detainee’s rights;

-use of excessive force and ill-treatment during detention;

-formal court hearings;

-declination of solicitations by defense side;

-unilateral consideration of police officers’ testimonies;

-imposing disproportionate sanctions;

-ungrounded judgments;

-blatant violations of rights in the temporary detention settings.

You can see the full Georgian version on the website of GYLA as well as on npo.ge:

Full Georgian version