Open Letter of Prisoners to the President, Minister of Justice and Chairman of the Pardon Commission

We, inmates of the Penitentiary Department # 5 for female prisoners, are sending this open letter to the entire Georgia, President of Georgia, Minister of Justice and Chairperson of the Pardon Commission. We, as well as the entire Georgian population, request restoration of justice that was our hope when electing the Georgian Dream to govern this country. We are not critical about the government and express gratitude for all positive changes implemented in this country during past one year including the Amnesty Law and amendments to the Article 59 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, which partly restored justice through changing the verdicts. However, it is not enough to restore justice in the countries. Despite implemented changes, many prisoners stay in illicit imprisonment.

We kindly request the Parliament of Georgia to timely consider the Law on the Commission Verifying Judiciary Irregularities and to review the cases of those people, who are still in prison under non-recognized and false accusations. We are fully aware that Georgian budget is not ready to compensate the rehabilitated prisoners but we believe it will be another injustice to keep those people in imprisonment [for that reason]. We suggest our initiative to the government: indicate reasonable deadline for the reimbursement of the compensation in the law and unless this provision eradicate the obstacles for the adoption of the law, the Pardon Commission shall make decision to free these people based on pardon decree.

22 prisoners sign the open letter.

3/12/2013