Strategy
1. Constitutional Status of the Prosecution Service
Constitutionally, Prosecution Service of Georgia is part of the system of executive power. It is governed by the Chief Prosecutor the candidacy of which is nominated by the Minister of Justice of Georgia and approved and appointed by the president of Georgia. Resignation of the Government does not automatically cause the resignation of the Chief Prosecutor of Georgia - his official authority is maintained.
Despite the constitutional status, the prosecution service is functionally independent. Neither the legislative nor the executive power is authorized to instruct the prosecution service about a specific case. Interrelations with the judicial power are grounded on the Criminal Procedure legislation and the principle of competitiveness must be maintained.
2. Organization of the Prosecution Service System
In order to ensure the effectiveness of the prosecution service system management and to increase the level of monitoring over the prosecution service by the society an independent body – Council of the Prosecution Service – will be established within the same system. The Council will be staffed with the representatives of bodies of the executive and the legislative powers, the prosecution service representatives and members of the academy and non-governmental organizations.
The basic function of the Council of the Prosecution Service will be organizing competitions for the candidates for prosecutors, further assisting the Chief Prosecutor of Georgia in effective management the of prosecution service system.
3. Functions of the Prosecution Service
The prosecution service will maintain its main function that is conducting criminal prosecution and supervision over pretrial investigation. The role of a prosecutor in terms of a supervising body over pretrial investigation will strengthen along with updating the criminal procedure legislation.
By adopting a new criminal procedure code an institute of discretion for criminal prosecution will be established. Namely, a prosecutor will have discretion in terms of criminal prosecution on cases of minor significance. Interests of the injured party will be considered when elaborating on the discretional prosecution system.
The Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia, being a part of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia, will also carry out coordination of combating against criminality by the law enforcement bodies.
The unified informational-analytical and statistical service will carry out statistics for the crimes throughout Georgia, conduct analytical research and analyze the dynamics of criminality.
4. Disciplinary pursuit of prosecutors
Disciplinary pursuit of prosecutors in the cases foreseen under the legislation will be carried out by the General Inspection of the prosecution service that is managed by the Deputy Chief Prosecutor.
The General Inspection is independent when conducting the disciplinal prosecution. The Chief Prosecutor and subordinate prosecutors will be granted a right to inform the General Inspection about disciplinal infringements. The General Inspection is not limited to the submitted information and carries out further disciplinal conduct autonomously.
Disciplinary abuses and the relevant liabilities are defined by legislative acts. Terms for imposing liability for disciplinal abuses are also predefined.
A prosecutor is liable for committing a crime (an offence) according to the general rule with the only exception that no one but the Chief Prosecutor can launch a criminal prosecution against him/her. The case investigation is carried out by the representatives of the prosecution service of Georgia.
5. Public Prosecution Service
Projects of the public prosecution service must be spread out in various regional offices of the prosecution service. The purpose of the activities of the public prosecution service is to focus prosecutors on the involvement of local populations in solving problems connected with crimes and potential crimes through a preventive approach. The local offices of the Prosecutor’s Office will be able to better respond to the needs of the local population through the improved crime prevention policy, outcomes of the opinion polls, visits to schools, social activities, local advisory council sessions and other progressive means. The said activities will further promote to raising awareness and confidence in the prosecutorial service and the criminal justice system in general.
Projects of the Public Prosecution Service are carried out in 7 regional offices of the Prosecutor’s Office at present, namely: Old Tbilisi, Telavi, Mtskheta, Akhaltsikhe, Zestaponi, Ozurgeti and Shuakhevi. These long-term projects will probably last for several years. They have been elaborated on the basis of the successful experience of the Mtskheta and the Telavi Public Prosecutor’s Offices and the great effort made by them. The said projects are basically directed at reducing criminality through the application of alternative measures.
6. Departments’ Crime Victims Assistance
Assistance Centers for Crime Victims is a joint project of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia and the Legal Aid Service. This remote initiative implies in itself a rational increase of the role of the prosecution service and strengthening it through granting priorities on the immediate interests of the crime victims. It comprises consultations, management and referral mechanisms.
The goal of a successful conduct of the Assistance Centers is to raise awareness in the society about the assistance to victims and the criminal justice bodies.
At first 3 piloting assistance centers are planned to be established in the Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Mtskheta offices of the prosecution service. Highly qualified professionals will be hired in the centers. They will go through in-depth trainings in communicational skills and first aid practice in cases of psychological traumas. After the employee of the center has made the first contact with a crime victim, according to the specific situation, he/she will:
• give the victim general consultation about his/her procedural rights/obligations.
• ensure that preliminary answers are given and issues of registering the crime are resolved.
• organize a meeting with the appropriate law-enforcment agent/s and inform them on the criminal conduct; and
• give recommendations on the Legal Aid Service and other relevant institutions.
The center further serves a one-off assistance to crime victims in terms of informing them about the institutions and projects that deal with the specific needs of crime victims.
7. Professional development of prosecutors
The Training Centre of the Analytical Department, Ministry of Justice of Georgia, pays special attention to the issues that are oriented on practice rather than on academic or innovative issues, namely, chain of imprisonments, discretion at the prosecution stage, ethics of proceedings, pleading skills, skills for drawing legal documentation, etc..
Trainings will promote the professional development of prosecutors through informational technologies.
The Training Center will establish and carry out schemes for distant learning in cooperation with the Department of Informational Technologies. The Center will be able to reduce the expenses allocated for prosecutor trainings and at the same time increase the control level over the intensity of teaching and estimation.
Simultaneously, it is planned to establish a database of all the trainings carried out by the prosecutors since 2004 and to analyzing the collected data for the purposes of identifying them according to certain needs. Degrees and other indicators like progress and/or attendance indicators are managed by the Human Resources Department. The said estimation mechanism will positively influence the future development of the professional carriers of prosecutors.
The Minister of Justice Held Meetings in the Council of Europe
Through 22-23 November 2012, the Minister of Justice of Georgia held meetings in the Council of Europe.
The first set of the meetings were held with the President of the European Court of Human Rights, the Registrar of the Court, several judges and the representatives of the Registry dealing with the Georgian cases.
The strategy for the future cooperation between the new Government of Georgia and the Court was the subject matter of the meeting. The Minister introduced the plans that are to be implemented by the Georgian Government for strengthening the protection of human rights on the national level and thus reducing the workload of the Court.
The representatives of the Court informed the Minister that there are approximately 700 pending applications against Georgia, which seem to be well-founded as a result of preliminary examination. It was agreed that the Court, where possible, will communicate to the Government the factual circumstances of the concrete cases under the simplified procedure and will play more active role in helping parties to reach a friendly settlement. Use of unilateral declarations will also be encouraged by the Government. The Minister expressed her hopes that this new approach based on mutual understanding of existing problems would unburden the Court and would, at the same time, avoid that Georgian applicants wait for several years until their cases are examined.
The Minister shared with the Court the new Government's commitment to take all the necessary legislative, administrative and other measures for the protection of human rights on the national level in order to prevent rise of potential applications in the future.
On 23 November 2012 the Minister held a meeting with the representatives of the Department for the Execution of the Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. The problems related to the execution of judgments against Georgia were discussed. The discussion revolved around the cases of Enukidze and Girgvliani, Kiladze brothers and other victims of political repressions, cases of the prisoners with the poor health as well as the victims of ill-treatment.
The Minister stated that the effective management of the procedure regulating execution of the judgments will be the priority for the Government, which presumes implementation of the active individual and general measures on the national level. It was noted that the strategy of the new Government would not be the mere imbursement of the allocated sums under Article 41 of the Convention. The new Government will also take every possible measure in order to internally solve systematic/structural problems revealed by the Court and in this manner to mould State practice for prevention of human rights violations.
The Minister informed the representatives of the Department for the Execution of the Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights with the action plan adopted by the Government for the execution of the judgment rendered by the Court on the case of Enukidze and Girgvliani and took on the responsibility to submit periodically, before 31 January 2013, additional information to the Committee of the Ministers on the events developed throughout the investigation process of the case. The above plan enunciates that the new Government condemns the approach taken by the previous Government, according to which the judgments of the Court were solely translated into the transfer of monetary compensations to the applicants and did not envisage re-investigation of cases and elimination of violations by all possible means. According to the plan, the new Government is ready to fulfil its obligation under Article 46 of the European Convention and conduct an objective and thorough investigation of the Girgvliani case, implement various measures for the enhancement of the existing legislation and adopt other necessary general measures in order to guarantee effective execution of the judgment.
The meeting also reflected on to the different issues of the cooperation, including the problem of uninvestigated cases and necessity to adopt a new approach with regard to the victims of political repressions.
The Minister held a meeting with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Commissioner for Human Rights, the President of the Venice Commission and representatives of the Monitoring Committee. Each of these meetings was imbued with mutual yearning for future cooperation and great interest towards the events taking place in Georgia in the aftermath of the parliamentary election.
Package of Legislative Amendments necessary for Judicial Reform will be presented to the Parliament as the Government's Legislative Initiative
The Georgian government presented the package of legislative amendments drafted by the Ministry of Justice of Georgia to the Georgian Parliament. The amendments are designed to carry out institutional reform of the Georgian judiciary.
As is known, the Ministry of Justice of Georgia presented the draft legislative amendments on November 8, 2012, and invited the legislative, executive, and judicial authorities, leaders of international missions accredited in the country, as well as Georgian and foreign nongovernmental organizations working on legal issues to take part in public discussions on this subject. In case the Parliament approves the draft legislative amendments:
- Rules of formation of the Council of Justice will be changed, as a result of which this body will become more free and independent from political influences;
- The civil society will gain a right to exercise effective control over activities of the High Council of Justice;
- Conference of Judges of Georgia will be provided with opportunity to administer real self-government;
- Disciplinary panel of Judges will be completely separated from the High Council of Justice, and will be formed as a separate body;
- The right to use audio and video recording equipment in the courtrooms will be restored, in consequence of which the society will have the opportunity to keep watch on the process of administering justice.
The High Council of Justice, and nongovernmental organization "Georgian Young Lawyers' Association" responded to the initiative of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia. Additional consultations were held with representatives of the Supreme Court of Georgia and High Council of Justice, the Coalition for Independent and Transparent Judiciary, leaders of other civil society organizations and other stakeholders, after which all reasonable comments and considerations were incorporated in the drafts legislative amendments.
The Ministry of Justice presented the final version of the drafts to the Venice Commission for their review.
Information About Interstate Applications
Minister of Justice Tea Tsulukiani, after her return from Strasbourg, informed the society about the interstate applications pending before the ECHR.
According to Tea Tsulukiani, proceedings on the first case Georgia vs Russian Federation, concerning the massive expulsion of Georgian citizens from Russia, are completed and closed.
"This means that the European Court will deliver its decision soon. The decision should already be made since deliberations took place as it always happens after an oral hearing before the Court. It is unknown yet what decision was made by the Court as a result of those deliberations. I think we will be informed about this decision very soon because much time has passed since the procedure was closed. I hope that this case will be completed in favor of interests of our State", - stated Mrs. Tsulukiani.
According to her, with regard to the second interstate case against Russia initiated in August 2008, proceedings are far from being completed.
"The Ministry of Justice represents the State on this case, and we will follow the application competently until the end", - stated Tea Tsulukiani.
