Categories
Journalistic Survey
Articles
Reportage
Analitic
Photo Reportage
Exclusive
Interview
Foreign Media about Georgia
Editorial
Position
Reader's opinion
Blog
Themes
Children's Rights
Women's Rights
Justice
Refugees/IDPs
Minorities
Media
Army
Health
Corruption
Elections
Education
Penitentiary
Religion
Others

City Court Found Dismissal of Employees of Kutaisi City Hall Illegal

September 2, 2013
 
Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi

An argument between the new administration and dismissed employees of the Kutaisi City Hall as a result of reorganization is underway at the Kutaisi City Hall. On August 22, the Court upheld the lawsuit of the dismissed employees, including the former head of control unit of administration service of the City Hall Koba Gabiani, and ordered to restore them to their working places.

Based on the court judgment of August 22 (Judge Genadi Makaridze), the Kutaisi City Hall was instructed to annul the June 18, 2013, decree of the City Mayor. Koba Gabiani was fired from the position based on this decree.

Gabiani, who was the head of control unit of the administrative service at the Kutaisi City Hall and resigned from the position as a result of the reorganization and personnel reduction, claims that he was illegally dismissed,.
 
“At the Kutaisi City Hall, the reorganization was carried out by rude the violation of law. Vice-mayor Tengiz Topuridze, who was the head of administrative service at the City Hall, did not want to keep those people in the City Hall, who could remind him of his political past. I want to publicly declare that I and other employees of the City Hall were fired for a simple reason – Topuridze knew that we could not adjust with his working style – intrigues and denouncement of each other,” Koba Gabiani said.

Lawyers of the Transparency International Georgia defend the rights of ten dismissed employees of the City Hall.

“New people were employed at the Kutaisi City Hall after the reorganization. However, during the reorganization and personnel reduction, they should have studied the relevance of the specific person to his/her position as well as the issue of dismissing a particular person from the office. Since administrative body has unilateral obligation to study everything when issuing individual decree. Unless it is studied and well-grounded, the decree does not have power and is automatically annulled. This trial is a precedent. Besides that, it is a good example for other complainant because it prescribes every condition how to fire a person from job,” a lawyer of the Kutaisi office of the TI-Georgia Theo Zakarashvili said.

The complainant claims the structural subordination of the new service set up as a result of the reorganization was not changed. The June 18, 2013 decree of the chairman of the Kutaisi City Council approved the list of City Hall personnel in accordance to which three positions of the head of unit (including the control unit) were created.

Gabiani and his lawyers said that his position was not abolished at the City Hall. Consequently, he was illegally dismissed from the position.

Humanrights.ge contacted a third party of the court proceedings Ana Chapidze. Lawyer Chapidze is an interim head of the control unit of the Audit and Control Service at the City Hall. This service was established at the city hall as a result of reorganization. 

“I am involved in the case as a third party because the court judgment could be applicable to me if it had satisfied Gabiani’s lawsuit and restored him to the work position. I want to clarify that a completely new service was created at the Kutaisi City Hall – Audit and Control Service and a new position was created within it – a control unit that does not mean that the control service resumed its old function. It has different functions and the service is absolutely amended. It is also noteworthy that service works in accordance to different resolution and based on different law. It cooperates with the State Audit Service. The old one relied on completely different goals. So I think Koba Gabiani was dismissed legally and the court decision is not well-grounded,” Ana Chapidze said. 

She believes the court judgment is groundless and clarifies that the court interfered in the competence of the local self-governance when it instructed the City Hall not to restore Koba Gabiani to his old working place but requested to appoint him to particular position.

“Of course it contradicts the law. According to the court judgment, a person can be restored to his/her working position and not appointed to any position. He could have been restored if the service had maintained old function. The Law on Public Service of Georgia recognizes two rules of employing a person. First – management decides on the appointment a person to the position and second – employment via competition. So, the court cannot appoint people to the positions,” Chapidze said.

According to the City Hall administration, the Kutaisi City Court’s judgment will be appealed to the Kutaisi Appeal Court in near future. 

News