The Constitutional Court for more Humane Criminal Code

Human rights activists are pleased with the decision of the Constitutional Court to declare certain clauses in the Criminal Procedures Code unconstitutional. However, they say continued monitoring is necessary to secure the success.

On October 17, 2002 several citizens and the Public Defender appealed the Constitutional Court of Georgia demanding elimination of certain clauses of the Criminal Procedures Code they said were incompatible with the Constitution.

According to the existing Criminal Procedures Code the detainee had no right to contact a lawyer, relatives or requesting the medical expertise within the first 12 hours of detention. Moreover, the Code limited the contact of the suspect/accused with the lawyer to 1 hour per day, as well as infringed upon the right of defender to get acquainted with the case materials. Another clause limited the right of a suspect to appeal the court on decision made by any of the investigators. The Code furthermore stated the period of preliminary detention could be more than 9 months.

Interestingly, the Criminal Procedures Code was adopted on the eve of accession to the Council of Europe in 1999. However, as Giorgi Chkheidze of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) says, the articles limiting the freedoms were appeared later, as amendments.

The Interior Minister, Koba Narchemashvili asked parliament to toughen the Code further on November 21, 2002 to expand the 12-hour limit of primary detention. This demand increased the fear of the representatives of Human Rights CSOs that keeping the suspect incommunicado for more than 12 hours would increase the cases of police abuse and torture, already widespread in the preliminary detention facilities. ( “Interior Minister under Fire”)

On January 29, 2003 the Constitutional Court of Georgia upheld a suit of Public Defender and several citizens. Specifically, the Constitutional Court eliminated the clauses restricting contact of detainee with lawyer and relatives from the very moment of detention; it banned any kind of time limits of suspect-lawyer meetings, recognized a person as suspect from the moment of detention and partially fulfilled the demand on preliminary detention stating 9 months include the period of court first hearing.

“The court reached a revolutionary decision”- Public Defender, Nana Devdariani, said after hearing the verdict. “We did not expect these results. Despite the fact that some of our demands were not met I still believe, this is a victory,” Devdariani added.

The eliminated clauses stopped operating from the moment the court ruling was announced. The Court decision also reads that till May 1, 2003 the Parliament of Georgia has to develop and adopt the changes to the Criminal Code for ensuring its accordance with the Constitution of Georgia.

“We will monitor the process of adopting the changes, for there is no guarantee that legislative branch which once already voted for unconstitutional clauses, will not make more mistakes,” says Giorgi Chkheidze of GYLA.