What changes are planned by the new chair of the Supreme Court of Georgia

Natia Gogolashvili

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili relied on the following criteria – principality, management skills, free from political influence and professionalism, when he nominated Nino Gvenetadze for the position of the Supreme Court Chairwoman. The legislative body also liked the President’s decision, and on March 20, 88 MPs voted for Nino Gvenetadze for the position.

Chairwoman of Supreme Court of Georgia Nino Gvenetadze gave exclusive interview to humanrights.ge.

-Ms. Nino, one of the biggest challenges in the judiciary system is small number of judges. Do you plan to increase number of judges, particularly in the first instance courts?

-The judiciary reform, which is ready for legislative changes, does not intend to increase number of judges. However, in order to ensure high-quality justice in the country, it is irreversible to increase number of judges in the first instance courts (particularly in the Tbilisi City Court). We already started working on this issue. We are hurrying. I think we will resolve these issues before September, 2015 but by that time several judges will have their terms expired and we will announce a new competition. Reasonable increase of the number of judges will require increased budget sources and many other resources too; we have started working on that.

-There are cases when a judge is in charge of particularly large amount of cases; it often creates problems. Do you intend to distribute the cases among judges so that to keep reasonable balance? 

-This issue is connected with the main problem that should have been already resolved in the general courts. I mean electronic version of case division.  Despite many efforts the judiciary system could not establish modern rules that are already obligatory for the court. The electronic division rule aims to randomly distribute the cases among judges. The program can distribute the cases based on equal principles that will exclude all doubts on partiality. 

-There are cases when judges of concrete specialization do not discuss relevant cases. Similar facts have become more frequent recently. Do you intend to determine specialization of judges and to maintain this specialization in future too?

-There are provisions in the Organic Law on Common Courts, which as an exception, allows to “resettle” judges into the court, which is overloaded with the cases. But it should happen in rare cases. Nevertheless, if we review our past experience, it has no longer been a rare occasion and very often judges are moved from one to another court. Similar approach, of course, makes the fate of concrete case suspicious because it was discussed by the judge, whose education in concrete field was not adequate. Although the legislative provision gives similar opportunity to courts it also requires that it should happen only in extremely rare cases for the purpose to avoid delay in the execution of justice. We again approach the problem of limited number of judges; nowadays courts process a lot of cases that complicates the situation.

-What do you think about life-appointment of judges and also about three-year work-outs? 

­-The Law on Common Courts has already regulated this issue. Our main direction and activities aim at the execution of the current law. We promise support and execution of the law requirements about evaluation judge’s work to everybody, whose probation time expiries. The probation term includes two evaluation procedures per year and in those procedures the judge will be absolutely safe from wrong interpretation of the law and activities against him/her. Negative conclusion of the Venice Commission and their doubt that work-out terms might damage impartiality and independence of the courts are very significant for us. So, the entire judiciary corps, with the support of the Council of Justice, will stay besides the judge during probation time. If he/she detects any signs of wrong interpretation of the law, or if it was incorrectly clarified to him and wrong procedures were implemented with regard to the judge, they can appeal it. So, the new institute shall serve the interests of only the judge.

-What kind of punishment measures will be applied if a judge commits disciplinary violations?

-In accordance to the 2014 report, 313 disciplinary cases were discussed at the session of the Supreme Council of Justice; the disciplinary procedures were dropped in 266 cases; in 17 cases the judges received recommendation letters. It is one of the punishment measures. In 30 cases the judges were requested to make clarifications and in 20 of them the disciplinary process stopped; the Council has not made decision in 8 cases so far. The Council did not discuss 2 cases. According to my evaluation the process was not effectively going on. It is necessary that Council of Justice became more active. Complaints and applications of process participant citizens must be effectively and timely responded. According to statistics, citizens complain about judges who either do not or improperly execute their duties, also about the delay in handing in the court judgments, about legality of the acts and about unreasonable drag-out of court hearings. Our purpose is to make the process more active and to timely respond to applicants whether the Council has started disciplinary proceedings based on their complaints. The applicants should be notified about negative answer as well as about concrete procedures the Council takes with regard to concrete complaints.

-Will you review the missions of judges, which are often perceived as one of the punishment mechanisms for judges?

-Missions of the judges were really perceived as punishment. It is noteworthy that the rule was improved as a result of the reform implemented by the Ministry of Justice. The main innovation is that it is impossible to send a judge to a mission without his/her agreement. Also, hence missions of judges will not have systemic character. It should happen only in urgent and necessary situations in order not to harm the litigation process.

-In 2004-2012 courts mostly issued guilty verdicts and there are 190 former political prisoners in Georgia. Same judges, who discussed those cases of the past, are still on their positions. Do you think it is correct?

-A judge has authority period. According to the Constitution of Georgia this period is 10 years. During these 10 years, judges are protected not only by the Constitution but also by the Law on Common Courts. All legal procedures will be followed with regard to judges. If judges purposefully passed illegal judgments and if the remoteness of those cases has not expired, the criminal law should be applied in similar cases. We will again review all those complaints which were lodged in that period. If there are no complaints against the concrete judge, we can start internal survey, collect some information, etc. One of similar cases is Sandro Girgvliani’s case. The execution part of the judgment of the European Court on Human Rights directly states to respond to this fact and information about the reaction shall be sent both to the Strasbourg Court and to the wider society. As for issues of political prisoners, who believe they were victims of wrong justice, not only the actions implemented by the judges into their cases should be studied but also their cases must be reviewed.

-Revision of illegal and ungrounded judgments – establishment of the commission for identification of judiciary miscarriages, creation of mini Strasbourg Court model in the Constitutional Court of Georgia, special chamber in the Supreme Court – are these issues still urgent and which model do you give preference?

-When I actively participated in the Inter-Agency Commission of the Ministry of Justice, I worked almost on all these models. Now, it is up to law-makers to choose any of them. Also, it is important that the model they choose will be supported by our society too. As you know in 1999-2006 I was a judge at the Supreme Court and was first time sent to the so-called “supervision chamber” where we reviewed court judgments due to recently discovered circumstances. However, this chamber did not work for a long time. In 2001 the chamber was abolished. Years passed and now it is still important review the judgments passed in the period of 2004 and 2012 due to recently discovered circumstances. It is natural that people request restoration of justice. The court will take part in it if the new legislative change will oblige the judiciary authority to implement similar activities.

-Will you reconsider the criteria on accepting applications to the Supreme Court and also current practice? 

-We have the most complicated situation in the Civil Case Chamber where the large amount of cassation applications was sent. We plan changes there. Now I work on the bill, which prescribes new approaches to the admissibility of cassation lawsuits. First of all it requires the court to pass well-grounded decision even if the cassation lawsuits are declined and provide the applicant with clear clarifications. It is very important for the process participant parties who applied to the court and waits for the decision during six months. Besides that, we think to introduce more clarity in the admissibility criteria which clarifies when cassation lawsuits can be accepted. I hope these amendments will soon be introduced to the law and will subdue all those problems that the Supreme Court has now. The amendments were sent to the entire system of common courts and we will agree positions with judges too.

-Do judges use Strasbourg Court standards during decision making process and what will be done to increase capacity of judges in this direction?

-We have a special service unit on international relations in the Supreme Court, where case laws of the European Court are translated first of all for the Supreme Court judges. However, these materials are printed and published in order to enable judges of all instance courts to read the case law. We are aware that it is not enough. We, with the support of international donor organizations, plan to translate all recent judgments by the Strasbourg Court soon and to make sort of text-books for judges. We intend to improve coordination and relation between the judges of different instances. It does not mean to promote agreement process on concrete cases but it means their coordination on problematic issues.

-What do you think about the jury court?

According to 2004 constitutional amendments, the jury court has been functioning in the common court system. Our aim is to make this institute more effective. It is important that it is the accused person, who should make decision about it. However, it is also significant to improve the selection process of the jury members. We hope for the support of international donor organization to work on these issues. We hope to conduct intensive and result-oriented trainings with their support. Jury court has discussed only about 10 cases so far but if this institute will have big support, we can effectively use it. But the main issue is to have readiness from the potential jury members to participate in this process. Also, the state and court have a lot of obligations to ensure effectiveness of this institution.

-How will you inform society about the implemented reforms in the judiciary system?

-From the very first day of my coming here, I asked colleagues to make all public information available for all interested parties, including media sources, in the shortest time. We plan to establish new effective information service in the court. We will also announce public days for every journalist. We will plan periodic meetings with media to inform them about the activities implemented by the Court. I will be ready to impartially and fairly answer all questions, assaults and criticism from media. I think with the support of media we should increase public trust to the courts. We are ready to release as much information as possible to allow the society to know ongoing processes in the judiciary system and make their conclusions about them.

  

Photo by. Cp.ge