EU-Supported Project Reforms Georgia’s Prosecution Services [Full]
The name is convincing: “Promoting Prosecutorial Independence through Monitoring and Engagement,” in short - PrIME. The European Union has launched a new project to reform the prosecution services in Georgia. The aim is bridge the gap to other countries as Georgia’s judicial system lags behind more efficient systems. Although the usual processing time is faster than in neighboring states, the reforms build a multiple pillar system, including factors such as media and monitoring, into an effective judicial system.
PrIME is a two-year project, running from 2018-2020. It aims to enhance the accountability of the PSG and empower information exchanges between the government, civil society, media and the public on the ongoing major reforms in the system.
“Georgia has made significant progress in advancing the sequence of reforms across all sectors of the prosecution service,” said Giorgi Gogadze, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of Georgia. “In the upcoming years, the reform package calls for further actions to enhance the quality of institutional independence and integrity, to empower low-level prosecutors, actively engaging them in the decision-making processes, and to raise citizen trust in and awareness about the justice system of Georgia.”
“We hope to see many new visions and initiatives,” he added. “Over the last 100 years of our history, it has been symbolic and essential to create such independent monitoring tools. Yet, it won’t be enough and there are many additional things we need to do. We need to look for a direction to curb the crime rates and the violence. This pillar will also be included in our project. We’ve been involved in the process since the beginning of the reforms and we are very much looking forward to continuing our support and supervision of the reforms.”
“It is our first project of such a major scale for us, we couldn’t have imagined carrying out such a project a couple of years ago,” Giorgi Kidiashvili, Executive Director of the IDFI, said. “We are very proud and excited to work with the support of the EU. We also see that the Georgian government strongly supports us and this is important- having the backing of the state ensures the improvement of the dialogue between the civil sector and the government.”
“The European Union strongly supports Georgia’s efforts to strengthen the rule of law and human rights protection in line with its international commitments, including the Association Agreement. We are happy to see state institutions engaged actively in this action implemented together with civil society partners,” noted Mikolaj Bekasiak, Communications Attaché at the EU Delegation to Georgia.
The PrIME project assumes a comprehensive approach, as part of which IDFI and its partners will work in four main directions: first, monitoring; second, media investigation; third, capacity building and awareness-raising aimed at ensuring impartiality and fairness in the Georgian prosecution and investigation systems; and, fourth, increasing capacity and awareness on hate crimes and violence against women.
Looking at the fourth point, the trust of the population will measure the achievements. Some of the projects include focus groups, which are led by personnel who receive training beforehand to learn the methodology. The discussion of these focus groups will deal with addressing hate crimes and violence against women. The prosecutors will also have the chance to visit The Netherlands to understand how the country works against such crimes. This will enable them to learn from other systems which have proven effective in dealing with such issues.
The inclusion of the media is often underrated during such reforms, something the organizations are trying to improve on this time round. Journalists are the mouthpieces for many legal cases; however, the necessary expertise to cover them subjectively is often not present. Formal training for journalists and media representatives aims to explain the main pillars of legal procedures in Georgia and to create a media environment in which cases are dealt with in the most professional manner possible. Through such efforts, the reformers hope to remove ideological opinions from legal articles as they harm the impartiality of courts.
The Office of the Chief Prosecutor of Georgia, participating heavily in the reforms, has several objectives it hopes to achieve. In addition to the Prosecutorial Council, which elects the Chief Prosecutor for a six-year term, an Advisory Council will be set up and the advisor’s position strengthened in order to help the prosecutor with the handling of cases as well as the necessary research required to decide on contentious cases. The Advisory Council will also have the power to recommend a case promotion if they see fit.
An additional point of the planned restructuring is the implementation of the 2017-2021 Action Plan, which revolves around the improvement of four essential points.
The first priority is a constant observation and improvement of human rights, coupled with strict punishment for human rights violations. This is followed by the aim to increase the overall trust of the public in the Chief Prosecutor’s Office. Third, the Office is to channel resources to the promotion of legal professionals in hopes of attracting more personnel of high quality to work under the banner of the Ministry of Justice. Creating publicity and raising the value of the profession will also heavily benefit the private legal sector. Lastly, the Action Plan implements additional measures to curb crime and lower the crime rate in all parts of Georgia.
These objectives and the road to achieving them will be measured through the introduction of new indicators. This enables both public and reformers to observe the evolution of the system while backing it up with figures and facts.
Detailing the focus points of the Chief Prosecutor’s Office, the spokesperson highlighted several areas where improvement is imperative. One area is the persistent countrywide occurrence of domestic violence.
Besides introducing additional campaigns to call for an end to domestic violence, the goal is to raise awareness among potential perpetrators by outlining the dangers and consequences. In addition to a broken family life and a mentally unhealthy environment for children to grow up, the victimization of women is a heavy consequence often weighing on their minds for the rest of their lives. Costly psychological therapy sessions add to the pain, as treatment is rarely sought.
The Prosecutor’s Office highlighted the ratification of the Istanbul Convention as the basis for these additional steps. The Convention condemns violence against women, which is rooted in the mere fact of women being of the opposite gender. It calls for various measures to prevent violence to women, to support the victims and to implement an infrastructure to seek help when confronting violence as a woman. Besides special emergency phone numbers, additional educational training for the wider public and financial support for victims, it calls for prosecutors specializing in the issue to increase the leverage in court cases. An important point will be the setting up of collective complaint schemes, which women can use together to go against one or multiple perpetrators.
Juvenile justice is also in the spotlight of the reforms, as a new juvenile law was recently enacted by the Georgian government hoping to raise perspectives of youth and to prevent them from engaging in criminal activities. New prosecutors have already been appointed, but the Chief Prosecutor’s Office hopes to engage more legal experts to create a long-lasting effect on society in this area.
Overall, various organizations like IDFI, will heavily support the government in reforming the Chief Prosecutor’s Office and the prosecutorial framework of Georgia. It needs to be seen to what extent the Georgian public will experience these changes. Just days ago, the EU published an alarming report mentioning new indications of increased corruption in the legal sector in Georgia. As international eyes are watching, Georgians hope that the level of corruption in Georgia decreases further, continuing the trend of the past 15 years.
By Benjamin Music