Administrative Collegium of the Tbilisi City Courtordered the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs to convey to the convicted Sh. P. the documents, in particular, the registration card of the comencement of the investigation into the criminal case (the exact time, year, month and date when th investigation started) and the exact time of when the report on the crime wasregistered (year, month and date) from the online data base of criminal cases.
With the documents, Sh. P. will be able to appeal the court and request revision of the guilty judgment. The MIA’s refusal on issuing the documents substantially harassed Sh.P.’s right to have access to justice. Sh.P. could not address the court without the documents.
Background
On February 6, 2015, the Tbilisi Citys Court convicted Sh.P. for drug crime. Sh.P. was sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment.
On July 8, 2015, based on the amendments to the Georgian Criminal Code,the punishment for drug crime was eased. According to the note in the article 260 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, a person shall be freed from the punishment if he/she voluntarily gives in the drug, its analogue, precursor, new psychoactive substance, psychotropic substance, its analogue or strong substance, if there are not signs of other crimes in his/her actions. For the purposes of drug crime, voluntary give in means only the action when a person through writing or any other communication way declares about possession of drug, its analogue, precursor, new psychoactive substance, psychotropic substance, its analogue or strong substance before the investigation and actively contributes to its withdrawal.
In the end of July, 2015, Sh.P. addressed the MIA and requested the information about exact time when his case was registered and when the card on the commenced investigation was registered(document#1) in the online program. The prosecutor’s office had handed the documents about his case to Sh. P. which did not contain the abovementioned information. In this case, the convicted person was keen to confirm that the investigation started only after he voluntarily handed the drugs to the law enforcement officers. Despite numerous requests of Sh. P., MIA refused to issue the information, claiming it was not public and the ministry was not obliged to give it out.
With the legal aid of Human Rights Center, Sh.P. appealed the Tbilisi City Court and requsted to order the MIA to issue the registration card of the comencement of the investigation into his criminal case (the exact time, year, month and date of starting the investigation) and the exact time when the report on the crime was registered (year, month and date).
On July 29, 2016 the Tbilisi City Court fully satisfied the appeal.
Human Rights Center