Nana Kakabadze Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs is a Repressive Body

The whole country is infected by the virus of illegality. There is not a grain of truth around. There is no difference between Judges and offenders because they violate law in the same way. In order to find out the degree of law obedience and qualification of our judges, we addressed to Ms. Nana Kakabadze – protector of prisoners’ rights.

- Miss.  Nana, do we have qualified judges?

- The extent of qualification of our judges does not matter when there is no justice in the country and the decisions made are based upon the political environment rather than upon the law. The government encourages illegality and designs so called “guidelines” according to which the judges act and make their decisions. It seems that the juridical education is not important if one has those guidelines that indicate what term to sentence to which prisoner.

Modification of the legislation that took place few years ago granted more independence to the judges. I mean prohibition of presence of media representatives at the process. It is so in many democratic countries as well, but the fraud and illegality does not take place there to the same extent as in Georgia.

Media was a public guarantor. Judges realized that the processes would become public and therefore tried to be more or less fair. These democratic rights have been misused. The society is derided, humiliated and insubstantially fined. Today the professionalism of judges is a least important in Georgia as the positions are assigned to the 20-22 year-old youngsters; sometimes nearly 17-year-old pupils are offered the judge’s position. The law does not accept assignment of youngsters to the judge’s jobs as the latter requires long-term learning, practice and etc. But the government prefers to have ignorant and easily managed staff appointed at such places. They prefer to have executors of political orders in place.

The law and justice cannot exist in the country where the court does not rely upon the independent arbiter, and where it relies upon the prosecutor’s office, where the “well-packed” political will prevails.

It is obvious, that there is one prosecutor sitting at a desk, and another dressed in long robe sitting higher (on a “judgment seat”). This means that the processes are handled by two differently dressed prosecutors where the sense of law supremacy, protection of human rights and justice is something out of the question.

After the “Rosy” revolution the courts have been “cleaned up” of independent judges (for example: Nino Gvenetadze, Merab Turava, and so on), moreover, they have been replaced by inexperienced persons. If the judges despite their education and professionalism have to make similar decisions, or, otherwise, the ministry of interior makes decisions for them, does it make any difference whether those judges are educated or not?

Generally, justice official should be impartial and independent by nature and psychologically balanced. The law allows him to handle an offender’s future. This is a huge responsibility and therefore should be carried out by the professional and experienced individuals who are able to make objective decisions. It is paradox that the named responsibility has disappeared in our country, i.e. nobody cares about solving a charge. Their major task is money-making, alignment to the presidential course, and justification of political corruption.

- What is the degree of legality of plea bargaining?

- I have expressed myself toward the issue for several times. In fact this is a corruption, namely legitimation of corruption and robbing people by the virtue of the law. One cannot call it either an illegal conduct or a plea bargain through robbing people. Generally, plea-bargaining procedure is established in many democratic countries and is based upon certain norms and regulations. As many other norms and rules, these rules are also ignored in Georgia thus making Georgian version of plea-bargaining most ugly and incorrect one. One is asked to deposit at least 15-20 thousand Gel and nobody cares how the one gets the amount, whether through selling out a house and all belongings or just committing suicide because of inability to pay.  Money is important. With this regard let me introduce an example about an young man who was committed to pay 15000 Gel for stealing a mobile phone. In fact, this shows that people have to buy their own freedom but still cannot get rid of enslavement. Setting the named amount in the conditions of existing revenues of Georgian population is impossible. When the million and a half of the population is under the poverty line and in general, 86% of them is unable to pay, such kind of a plea-bargain should not be introduced if there is no fraudulent practice involved. The law should not be as barbarous as it is in Georgia – enslaving people, and pressing them psychologically. I cannot not refrain from saying that Georgian legislation is aimed to ignore Georgian population and finally genocide them. For example, today, 25 000 people are under probation, another 25 000 people are accommodated in different jails. There are plenty of individuals (nearly 70 000 people) being under investigation or on the list of wanteds.  Almost every second family now in Georgia has a member imprisoned, this is an unprecedented matter. Georgia became the police state and the government does not disclaim it. On a contrary, they are proudly stating that “Vano Merabishvili is a backbone of the country; the rest is blessed to Saakashvili”.

The government officials meet with opposition representatives at the premises of the ministry of interior instead of state chancellery. There is an open propaganda of interception, and they really do it without taking any responsibility for it. Everyone knows that the ministry of interior is wire-tapping but nobody can object. The Georgian ministry of interior is a repressive body terrifying people.  Some people rescue themselves through leaving the country, others, who express the protest loudly are massively arrested. That’s why the courts use to make solely political decisions. At the court trial of Batiashvili, Ramishvili, Kutsnashvili and Igor Giorgadze’s supporters’ cases the government put out the claw, i.e. made the serious influence upon the decisions.

Generally speaking, the law and the court should serve the truth; make an offender to understand what does the illegal conduct and obedience to the law supremacy mean. Unfortunately, the behavior of the men of justice and investigators is rather far from the meaning of the word “law”. Handling one’s destiny unjustly always entails protest from the offender; however, expression of his emotions can cost an offender a doubled sentence, as it depends solely upon the judge’s mood.

- At what extent are the fines and penalties imposed by judges fair, and how is the due amount determined?

-  The fines and penalties paid fulfill the 30% of budget. The lower line of fines is set at 400-500 Gel. The judges hold all rights to fine someone even for expression of one’s emotions. Trully, it is hard to keep oneself calm when the trial process is handled so unduly. The law considers an affect to be a mitigating circumstance; however, our judges foresee it in a counter way.  

-  Do you know about the cases of self-injure due to incorrect sentences?

- Of course, there are cases of self injury and even a suicide; but such cases are not granted much attention, it depends upon how much one can stand and who is most pressed psychologically. The judges do not care about it; they send people to the jails where one can hardly survive. The administration of prisons, internal policy and living conditions there make majority of prisoners to prefer to die than be imprisoned.

Interviewed by Nana Dikhaminjia

P.S. After publishing the draft Constitution in 1936 an old lawyer visited Lavrenti Beria and said: “there are flat errors in the new project of the constitution, from the legal point of view, and I would like to discuss them with Comrade Stalin, could you arrange my visit to him?”  Beria called Stalin and explained the matter. Stalin answered: “Tell to my old friend that if he thinks I am going to rule the country according to the constitution, he might be a fool and therefore I don’t wish to talk with him; but if he knows I am not going to obey the constitution, then who cares what is written in it?”