An Eternal Trial

A Priest and his Neighbor Locked in Court Confrontation for Six Years

by Salome Jashi

The neighbors’ dispute over five square meters of space goes on for six years, delivering an unfavorable account of the deep-seated problems Georgian judicial system that persist despite major reform undertakings by the EU and other donors.

A dispute between Father Elizbar Odishvili and Kara Bardzimashvili presents a range of the legal lapses: the district court has initially decided that there is no case in appeal to start with. Nevertheless the case has been circulating in courts for almost a decade. Even more disturbing is that the plaintiff himself seems to have violated the rights of others, while arguing for his own rights.

When communists nationalized the building number 3 on Toradze Street, large apartments were divided into smaller ones and the common doors were sealed. Kara Bardzimashvili lives in a 3-room apartment with a balcony together with her mother, husband and one child.

The place has two entrances: one from a spiral stairway leading from the courtyard and another from the main entrance to the building. But Bardzimashvilis have not used the main entrance for two years – they are afraid of their neighbor, Father Elizbar Odishvili, an Orthodox priest of the Kashueti Church in Tbilisi.

“There are three doors between our and neighbor’s apartment. We have moved here in 1977. All three doors were nailed up and locked,” Kara Bardzimashvili says. In 1992, the family has privatized their apartment – three rooms, balcony, kitchen, bathroom and a tiny corridor connecting one of the rooms and the balcony. The corridor shares a door, sealed for many years, with an apartment, purchased by Elizbar Odishvili in 1996 and owned by his wife Nino Razmadze.

For the last six years this tiny corridor has become a major concern of the Bardzimashvili family, as Father Elizbar has asked his new neighbors to open the door and allow joint use of the corridor to the balcony.

“I asked them many times to open the [corridor]. Everyone lives like that – people have shared corridors, balconies. It’s Tbilisi….” says Father Elizbar. Bardzimashivilis declined priest’s proposal and the privatization protocols and other documents confirm that one side of the door belongs to Nino Razmadze, other side – to Bardzimashvili family and the corridor it on the side of Bardzimashvilis.

Father Elizbar has brought the case to the primary instance court, which ruled in favor of Bardzimashvili, but Father Elizbar appealed. Then the Mtatsminda District Court ruled that there are no legal grounds on which the plaintiff may claim his right to the property or the right of access to the corridor, and refused to take a case into consideration. This view is shared by several non-governmental organizations, including Human Rights Georgia and Georgian Young Lawyers Association.

However, Father Elizbar appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court, which surprisingly returned the case to the Mtatsminda District Court for reconsideration.

Since then, Bardzimashvili family went through more than 10 trials. The district court always ruled in Bardzimashvili’s favor, but the Supreme Court is on Elizbar Odishvili’s side. And the suspicion grows that there is far more to this troubled case than just law and due legal procedures.

“The Supreme Court is definitely prejudiced in this case. My side won the case in the district court five times and the Supreme Court rejected the decision five times,” Giorgi Zedelashvili, Bardzimashvili’s lawyer told Civil Georgia.

As Zaza Rukhadze, president of the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA), believes, Father Elizbar “did not follow the law. He was using his personal influence. Although our Constitution has eliminated all the privileges [of the Church] long time ago, we are witnessing the opposite,” Rukhadze says. Similarly, Bardzimashvili’s former lawyer Ketevan Chabukiani argues that reason of endless trials is a pressure applied by Father Elizbar’s influential parish on the Supreme Court.

Kara Bardzimashvili believes that the Georgian Orthodox Church has been influencing the Court as well, mediating between the Supreme Court Chairman and Elizbar Odishvili. “We are asking for your assistance to finish this endless trial and count on your kind attention” – says Patriarchy’s address to the Court. Several priests of the Kashueti Church have addressed the Chairman of the Supreme Court and even the President, portraying the trial as a threat to the Georgian Orthodox Church and its parish.

Statement of the Judge Shota Dumbadze confirms that the Church attempts to influence the court. “I can not attend the trial, because the Holy Father forces me to lie,” the judge said during one of the trials. Zaza Rukhadze of GYLA considers the influence of the Patriarchy over judicial power to be an extremely negative trend.

But beside the Church, there might be personal connections at play. According to information of Kara Bardzimashvili and his former lawyer, several influential men such as Chief of the Intelligence Department Avtandil Ioseliani, influential MP Niko Lekishvili, Tbilisi Mayor Vano Zodelava, Vice-Speaker of the Parliament Gigi Tsereteli are members of Father Elizbar’s parish.

“When the Supreme Court returned the case to the District Court, it was reviewed by Judge Gergedava, an IDP from Abkhazia. He told us in informal conversation that he is an IDP and would prefer to lose my truth to losing his chair. It appeared that Ioseliani, chief of Intelligence service has called him right before the trial,” Bardzimashvili says.

“Elizbar Odishvili calls himself an ‘elite priest’. He has good friends in the government and the Patriarchy. Besides this, the court is influenced by the fact that he is a priest,” says Emil Adelkhanov, human rights activist from the Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD). Therefore, he thinks, it will be very difficult for Bardzimashvili to defend her property rights.

As the time goes by and the courts are sending their decision back and forth, the situation in the house number 3 on Toradze Street deteriorates. According to information of Bardzimashvili confirmed by other neighbors, Father Elizbar has beaten her elderly mother. “Bardzimashvili [the mother] has signs of beating with heavy object on her body”, says conclusion of the court’s medical expertise.

The Patriarchy comments that Elizbar Odishvili was acting to “protect his own dignity”. “Insulting of a person is unforgivable. A man can do anything [in response] even beat an intimidator. Priests must be people with dignity and they should be able to protect their honor,” Levan Pirtskhalaisvili, Secretary to the Patriarch of Georgian Orthodox Church told Civil Georgia.

The law permits endless circulation of a case between the Supreme Court and lower level courts. Bardzimashvili’s case goes on like this for six years, contributing to concern of many non-governmental and international organizations, such as the OSCE Human Dimension Office and the Human Rights Watch.

“If we really want to have a just state, then the legal judgment should not be skewed in the priests’ favor,” says Zaza Rukhadze. He believes that non-governmental organizations should become involved in this case once again, because “we are not dealing with a problem of a particular person. Every Georgian citizen is unprotected in a very same way”.

The conclusions a legal analysis of this case prepared by the Center of Protection of Rights and Security of Migrants and Foreign Nationals say: “It can be declared that the plaintiff has violated Article 21 of the Constitution of Georgia [right to property and heritage] while acting against Bardzimashvili. Regretfully none of courts on every level have considered this circumstance”.

The same document reads: “Attention shall be paid to a circumstance that in Bardzimashvili-Razmadze [wife of Elizbar Odishvili] case, the claim has been submitted to the court in violation of the procedures, defined by the law. Almost every document, which is presented by the plaintiff [Elizbar Odishvili’s wife] is either forged or does not depict the real situation”.

“He told us he would wipe us out. And we are in constant fear. I know he can do that. I have no friends among the parliament members or the ministers or the mafia to protect me,” says Kara Bardzimashvili, who is even afraid of involving the police fearing fears that an influential neighbor has connections there as well.