The Coalition for an Independent and Transparent Justice responds to the meeting between Prime Minister of Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili and Supreme Court Chairman of Georgia Kote Kublashvili.
The Coalition for an Independent and Transparent Justice responds to the meeting between Prime Minister of Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili and Supreme Court Chairman of Georgia Kote Kublashvili.
Providing salary bonuses to public servants has been closed to public recently. Althogh following the 2012 parliamentary elections, majority of public agencies provided access to the information, certain problems remain. In this light, following the 2012 parliamentary elections NGOs and media outlets have reported about provision of salary bonuses in public agencies on a number of occasions (including provision of bonuses in the ministries, the Government Chancellary and the parliament in November-December, 2012). Consequently, GYLA deems it expedient to update public on further developments.
With GYLA’s assistance, heir apparent of a victim of political repressions will receive pecuniary compensation
With the legal aid from the lawyer of GYLA’s office in Tbilisi, N.S.’s claim filed in court was granted by Tbilisi City Court’s board of administrative cases. Based on Declaration of Citizens of Georgia as Victims of Political Repression and on Social Protection of the Repressed, GYLA’s lawyer filed for pecuniary compensation. The claim was granted in part by the court by ordering the Ministry of Finance of Georgia to provide entire of GEL 400 in pecuniary compensation in favour of N.S.
GYLA is addressing the parliament of Georgia with regard to a draft law replacing the consecutive sentencing by concurrent sentencing. GYLA welcomes liberalization of criminal justice policy; however, it believes that several important issues remain in the draft law that need to be further improved.
Tbilisi City Court admitted a lawsuit filed by former director of Public Broadcaster, Giorgi Baratashvili, seeking annulment of the March 4, 2013 decision of the Board of Trustees and compensation for lost wages.
Several different news agencies have reported about dismissal of the following three employees of the National Agency of Public Registry, department of legal services – Imedi Arjevanidze, Manana Natroshvili and Mukhran Burchuladze. According to these reports, they were informed on March 18, 2013, upon their arrival at work that they no longer worked at the agency.
Referring to the March 19, 2013 statement of First Deputy Minister of Justice Mr. Davit Jandieri (see the attached file), GYLA responded to the dismissal of three employees of the National Agency of Public Registry. GYLA criticized the decision made by the head of the agency. Further, no concrete legal grounds for the dismissals were known at the time of making the statement.
The defendant’s right to refuse a jury trial based on a substantiated motion must be maintained
On January 16, the Coalition for an Independent and Transparent Judiciary made a statement in response to the draft law prepared by the Ministry of Justice regulating application of a jury trial. In particular, according to the initiative application of jury trial constituted a mandatory requirement rather than the right of a defendant (as stipulate by the Criminal Procedure Code), as prosecutor’s consent was required for a jury trial waiver. Further, prosecutor was not required to substantiate the refusal to waive jury trial. After the Coalition criticized the draft law, it was withdrawn from the parliament. It engendered certain expectations; however, on March 4, 2013, the parliament was submitted with a new legal initiative about jury trial, which was content-wise analogous to the previous one. Consequently, all comments of the Coalition about the initial draft law are still relevant.
On February 11, Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association submitted an application in Tbilisi City Hall requesting access to public information. In particular, GYLA requested information about spending of funds transferred to two legal entities – non commercial legal entity Old City Rehabilitation and Development Fund and non commercial legal entity Tbilisi Development Fund from 2005 to July 5, 2011, total of more than GEL 367 million. In particular, Tbilisi City Hall was requested to provide access to the following public information: