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The Commission does not Release Seriously Ill Convicts

July 8, 2015
Natia Gogolashvili

Convict Inga Tsuladze has been in prison N5 for 5 years. Her health condition is extremely severe. A lawyer of Human Rights Center, Tamar Avaliani protects Inga Tsuladze’s rights regarding health issues. She addressed the joint permanent commission of the Ministry of Corrections and Legal Assistance and the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia to release Inga Tsuladze from serving the remaining sentence. It has been a month since the request and the commission has still not issues a decision. 

The Court can release a convict from prisoner who, before or after committing a crime, got sick with a serious disease, which hampers to serve a sentence. Also, the court can release from serving the remaining sentence those prisoners who achieved old age while being in prison (women from age 65, men from age 70),  are not sentenced to life imprisonment and have served at least half of their sentence. 

Article 74 of Criminal Code of Georgia directly defines conditions when a prisoner can be released from prison, however actual practice is often different. 

Inga Tsuladze serves her sentence based on article 109 of CC. She is charged for ordering a murder of her own husband. In 2013, she was finally sentenced to 13 years and 4 months imprisonment. The convict pleaded not guilty for the murder of her husband. According to her, the verdict is unlawful. In addition, Tsuladze states that she is a victim of torture- investigator prosecutors tortured her so she would give a desirable testimony for them and give up her real estate in Tbilisi. Forensic report says that “while entering a prison, Inga Tsuladze really had signs of physical damage on her body.”

The convict Inga Tsuladze underwent forensic examination by her own expenses with an independent expert Maia Nikolaishvili. Expertise took 14 months (from September 21, 2013 to December 25, 2014). According to the report, her diseases are progressive. If in April 2013 she had only a mitral valve abnormality, after 1.5 year, in October 2014 she had mitral, tricuspid and pulmonary valves failure. According to the report, such fast progression of the disease without full diagnosing and treatment, takes away chances of Inga Tsuladze for substantial improvement of her health. Accordingly, by being in a penitentiary facility, her life is in danger. 

In addition to cardiological problems, the convict has other severe diseases too. The forensic report reads: “the treatment is adequate, but pathological process is progressive and applied to different valves of her heart. Significant failure of valves, pulmonary hypertension, swelling of the lower limbs and lymphostasis have been revealed during last year. Main disease of Inga Tsuladze is complicated by Raynaud's disease, which she developed after being placed in the penitentiary system. Raynaud’s syndrome is disease with spasms of blood vessels. Inga Tsuladze also has chronic gastrointestinal diseases, bone-articular diseases, kidney diseases, nerve diseases.”

According to the lawyer of Human Rights Center Tamar Avaliani, the convict developed these diseases while being in prison, because of the improper treatment and heavy conditions of the jail. Inga Tsuladze addressed the joint permanent commission in 2013, but they rejected to release. 

“In October 18, 2013, the convict Inga Tsuladze was rejected by the joint permanent commission to be released from serving a sentence based on her disease. Since October 2013, the health condition of Inga Tsuladze has been significantly worsened. The state, including the joint permanent commission is responsible for this, because they could not properly evaluated severity of Inga Tsuladzes diseases and threat of life,”- says Tamar Avaliani.

According to Tamar Avaliani, the practice of reviewing convicts’ applications is wrong. Also, the decision of the joint permanent commission of the Ministry of Corrections and Legal Assistance and the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia is ungrounded: “according to practice, prisoners are released only before the period of their death. They do not even release convicts with severe health conditions. We had cases, when a convict fully complied the list, which is confirmed by the Minister of Health Care, however the commission refused to release the prisoner. The decision of the joint permanent commission is ungrounded. It directly says “You do not satisfy the criteria and we refuse to release you”. Making the ungrounded decision is a problem of the joint permanent commission, also the timely review of the case. It has been almost two months since we submitted the case, but have not received no negative nor positive response.”

A convict of prison N5, Vakona Berishvili has also addressed Human Rights Center for help. Health condition of the prisoner is severe and becomes worse daily. The doctor has prescribed bed rest for her. In addition, Vakona Berishvili is subject to the release becayse of her elderly age. 

According to a lawyer of Human Rights Center Tamuna Lukava, the convict Vakona Berishvili meets all the requirements provided for by the section 5 of article 74 of Criminal Code of Georgia, paragraph “f” of article 37 and article 39 of Law of Georgia Imprisonment Code, paragraph 11 of article 4 of the joint order №181/№01-72/ნ by the Minister of Corrections and Legal Assistance of Georgia and the Minister of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia. 

According to the convict, on March 9 2015, an application about release from the sentence based on the elderly age of Vakona Berishvili was sent from the prison N5 of the correctional department to the joint permanent commission of the Ministry of Corrections and Legal Assistance and the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia. The commission has still not made the decision on Vakona Berishvili’s application. 

“I have addressed  multiple times to the joint permanent commission of the Ministry of Corrections and Legal Assistance and the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia with the request to prompt the discussion about the issue of releasing Vakona Berishvili from sentence based on her elderly age. But to no avail. The commission has not discussed the issue. It is notable, that according to past practice, when a motion was sent from the prison about releasing a prisoner from the sentence because of the elderly age, the joint permanent commission would review the case with an accelerated procedure and prisoners were released from serving their sentence based on the decision of the commission not later than 10 days after appeal to the commission,”- says Tamuna Lukava.

According to the lawyer, she addressed the Minister of Corrections and Legal Assistance of Georgia, the Minister of Labor, health and Social Affairs of Georgia and Human Rights and Civic Integration Committee of the Parliament of Georgia with the request of an appropriate response, but despite this the commission have not discussed the issue yet.

This article was published within the frameworks of the project Monitoring State of Women and Juvenile Prisoners in Georgia which is implemented by Human Rights Center in partnership with Office of Public Defender of Georgia, by the financial support of Embassy of Bulgaria.
The article does not necessarily reflect the views of the donor. Human Rights Center bears sole responsibility for the content of the report.

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