Unexecuted Court Decisions Increased

Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi

Number of unexecuted court decisions has seriously increased at Imereti regional bureau of the Execution Department. Victimized citizens demand to execute court decisions. Lawyers clarify that unexecuted judgments is a serious problem throughout the country and it is caused by various reasons.

“People often apply to us complaining about unexecuted court decisions. Very often the execution process is prolonged; more often they are not executed at all. We can speak about many reasons. One of them is lack of information among population. I mean, when a citizen appeals to the court, the court passes the judgment in accordance to the court and the citizen does not know the follow-up procedures in order to reach final result. He does not know that the court decision is not the final result,” said the lawyer of the Kutaisi office of the Georgian Young Lawyers Association Irine Oboladze.

Lawyers clarify that high number of unexecuted court decisions is resulted from incompetent activities of the execution institutions. “I do not want to be partial, but I think it is indifference of a certain people towards their responsibilities. Maybe, it is caused by the circumstance that number of executors is not enough in order to ensure implementation of the procedure. Of course, it is not justification for the problem. The decision made in the name of state shall be executed,” said Irine Oboladze.

Nana Bezhanidze applied to the Human Rights Center for help. The victim is former employee of Kutaisi Silk Factory who sued the factory at Kutaisi City Court because of unpaid salaries. Bezhanidze won the trial. Despite that she could not get the salary. Lawyers could not finish the process because the factory was bankrupted.

“Similar cases are many. In the case of accumulated salary debts, enterprises cease functioning or do not exist at all. In addition to that, there are cases when factories are bankrupted. The law envisages different regimes in regard with execution process in this case. Of course, it is one of the preventive factors of execution. In this case a person might be curious why his request was satisfied under one law and it was not executed under the second one. So, I think it shall be worked out more carefully because many problems are inside the execution process itself,” said Irine Oboladze.

On July 1, 2009 amendments were introduced to the Law on Execution Activities (chapter “private executor” was added). Besides that, Minister of Justice adopted law subordinated normative acts which regulates activities of private executors. These changes were evaluated in different ways.

Lawyer of the Kutaisi office of the GYLA Tamar Pachulia: “This amendment may be positive on the one hand. I mean execution bureaus will be freed from plenty of cases. The fact that debtor should not have anything and everything shall be done in favor of creditor – is not nice principle. If rights of debtors are also envisaged (that he should not be left without income, beyond living minimum and his rights shall also be protected), then we will welcome similar changes. I think, the state should also observe the activities of private executors in this field. But if it is uncontrolled process, and circumstances envisaged under the law do not work, private executor will be kind of punisher of debtors and it will be very bad.”

Irakli Gvenetadze, lawyer: “I think private execution institution will not succeed in Georgia. Execution is such a complicated process, that it shall be implemented by public agency. And it shall be subordinated to the state.”

Irine Oboladze: “Private execution bureaus work in many independent states.  I think it shall succeed in Georgia too. However, the law indicates and experts also think that monitoring of the process shall be necessary. It is not complicated procedure at all if we all follow the process. The executor is also a lawyer. He has passed qualification exam and holds license. I think, dignity and professionalism are the most important issues and not general feeling that I am a private legal entity and so means I will not do something properly.”

Executors avoid speaking on this topic. Representatives of Imereti regional execution bureau did not attend the meeting in the Kutaisi office of the GYLA; neither state attorneys attend the meeting.