On October 17, 2013 the High Council of Adjara Autonomous Republic approved the candidates nominated by the faction “Georgian Dream”, “Georgian Dream Adjara” and “Georgian Dream Free Democrats” in the competition for electing members of the Board of Trustees of Adjara TV and radio. Members from the faction “United National Movement” and “National Movement Majoritarians” failed to receive sufficient votes. Accordingly, the competition will continue on the remained two vacant positions.
Tbilisi City Court accepted Giorgi Baratashvili’s (the ex-director of the Public Broadcaster) lawsuit claiming invalidation of the September 6, 2013 decision of the Board of Trustees, restoration to his former position and compensation for the missed salary. Furthermore, the court also admitted the second lawsuit where Giorgi Baratashvili demanded invalidation of the September 12, 2013 decision of the Board concerning announced competition on the vacant position of the general director.
The round table “Reinforcing Civil Society’s Role in Prevention of Torture, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment” was held on October 11, 2013 in the frames of the project “Improvement of Prisoners’ Conditions –Joint Advocacy” implemented jointly by GYLA and the Public Defender’s Office.
Head of the Human Rights Committee of the Parliament, other MPs, Deputy Minister of Corrections and Legal Assistance of Georgia, Head of Penitentiary Department and representatives from Public Defender’s Office and NGOs participated in the event.
On October 8, media released information about David Kapanadze who was beaten by policeman and sustained gross bodily injuries as a result. GYLA visited David Kapanadze and concluded that information provided by him contains elements of offence. As Mr. Kapanadze has reported he is a choreographer, and works in two schools in Tbilisi. In addition he alleged that he had some verbal conflict with another choreographer T.Zh.
GYLA continues to monitor the course of election day at 36 Election districs in regions and Tbilisi.
Polling process is taking place in a calm environment.
As for 15:00, procedural violations are identified in several precincts. During the last several hours, GYLA’s observers revealed several types of violations and drafted complaints. According to our observations, violations were mainly conditioned by ignorance of Elections Code.
Short Overview
The Parliamentary Elections in 2012 resulted in the first transfer of power through elections in Georgia. This marked a significant progress in development of the country. Overall, the pre-election environment in 2013 merits a positive evaluation as it has been considerably calmer and there have been fewer violations compared with the pre-election environment in 2012.
By 9 a.m. polling process was taking place in a calm environment. The majority of election precincts observed by GYLA monitors were fully equipped with necessary voting equipment and ready for opening procedures. At several polling stations, mostly special precincts, GYLA monitors had problems with admission. Problems also occurred during casting of lots and control sheet filling out process.
GYLA has detected following procedural violations:
Georgian Young Lawyers' Association held presentation of its election observation mission on the October 27, 2013 Presidential Elections. Since the day of its establishment (1994), GYLA has been involved actively in monitoring of elections of the legislative and executive branches, as well as local governments and attempts to facilitate conduct of elections in peaceful and fair environment with observance of Georgian legislation in the election process.
The Parliament of Georgia discusses amendments to the Law on Broadcasting in an accelerated procedural manner. The joint proposal by Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association and Transparency International Georgia on the amendments to the Law on Broadcasting was partially considered by the Parliament, for which we would like to express our gratitude. We suggested establishing higher qualification criteria for candidates applying for the membership of Georgian National Communications Commission (GNCC). In case the draft law is enforced, the GNCC commissioners will be elected based on their professionalism and relevant work experience.
Today, on October 2, 2013 organizations “International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy”, “Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association”, “Transparency International Georgia” and “Jumpstart Georgia” held presentation of the elections portal in Holiday Inn at 12:00.
ElcetionsProtal.ge is a webpage jointly created by different NGOs and it provides to interested individuals comprehensive information about elections in Georgia. The map of violations enables users to observe online election gaps revealed by three organizations and to publish determined incidents on the web-page by sending the free SMS on the number 90039.
