Human Rights Center Requests to Consider Status of Political Prisoner as Newly Revealed Circumstance

Human Rights Center calls on the Parliament of Georgia to make relevant amendments to the criminal law of Georgia, based on which the status of a political prisoner will be considered as a newly revealed circumstance. Thus, the former political prisoners will have opportunity to appeal the court with the request to review past judgments on their cases.

In January 2013, people, whom the Parliament of Georgia granted status of political prisoners, were released from prison based on the Amnesty Law. With granting the status of political prisoners, the State took responsibility for their judicial rehabilitation and creation of effective mechanism to restore their breached rights.

For years, the former political prisoners have been unsuccessfully requesting revision of their cases and creation legal mechanism to review their past judgments. Despite many promises, the State for unclear reasons failed to create the effective mechanism for the eradication of miscarriages of justice.

Human Rights Center believes it is judicially irrelevant to have people with the status of former political prisoners on the one hand and guilty judgments against them on the other hand. At the same time, the former political prisoners still unsuccessfully request to investigate facts of ill-treatment by law enforcement officers and prison personnel. 

Regretfully, the Government could not ensure restoration of the breached rights of former political prisoners with effective domestic mechanism that causes fair astonishment of the former prisoners.

In near future, Human Rights Center will send official legislative paper to the Human Rights Committee of the Parliament of Georgia, whose direct responsibility is to address the existing judicial problems. 

Human Rights Center