In August of this year, four non-governmental organizations - Rights Georgia, Georgian Young Lawyers' Association, The Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC), and The Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) – addressed the Prosecutor's Office of Georgia to disclose information on criminal cases against judges in 2012-2020. The purpose of the request for information is to find out how often criminal investigations and prosecutions of incumbent judges have taken place since the Georgian Dream came to power, and whether this mechanism has been used to put direct and indirect pressure on judges.
In particular, the Prosecutor's Office of Georgia was asked to provide statistical information - after 2012:
- How many judges were summoned to the Prosecutor's Office as witnesses to testify or be questioned;
- How many family members of the judges were summoned as witnesses to testify or be questioned;
- How many cases have been investigated for possible crimes committed by judges and what happened to these cases;
- How many cases has the prosecutor's office applied to the Chairman of the Supreme Court to prosecute a judge.
According to the response of the Prosecutor's Office to the first and second requests, they do not process the data on these issues and according to the answer to the third and fourth requests, there are no criminal proceedings against the judges.
We believe that the response of the Prosecutor's Office is a deliberate avoidance of the disclose public information. In the first case it refuses to answer a question of high public interest for technical reasons, while in the second it manipulates (the question includes the past, the answer is only about the current situation, it does not say anything about the old data). It is in the public interest to know how many judges have been prosecuted since the Georgian Dream came to power and what happened to these cases. Accordingly, NGOs once again call on the Prosecutor's Office of Georgia to disclose information of the public interest.