Give Powers to Pardon Commission ? Ombudsman Tells President

Public Defender, Sozar Subari, called on President Saakashvili to scrap the current commission in charge of considering applications from convicts for pardon and set up a new one with greater powers.

Pardon Commission’s authority is currently limited with recommending to the President which convicts can be pardoned; it is then up to the President to agree or not; the President also has the right to pardon a convict without consulting the commission.

Subari, himself a member of the Pardon Commission, told President Saakashvili in a letter sent on March 18, that “there is complete chaos in the sphere of pardoning.”

“The current commission has turned into a fiction and its works became senseless,” Subari writes. He then continues by saying that there are cases when convicts with the commission’s recommendation for pardon remain in prison, while others without such recommendation are being pardoned “and it remains unclear who and why recommended their pardoning.”

“Often there are cases when convicts for petty crime are being refused in pardoning, while those with grave crimes are being released,” Subari says. He also claims that “ordinary and political corruption” now prevails in this sphere of pardoning, because of “vague and chaotic” situation.

Subari has spoken out against the issue for number of times in the past; but his recent criticism is apparently related with a controversial decision by the President to pardon four former employees of the Interior Ministry, who have been convicted for Sandro Girgvliani murder case. As a result of this pardoning, issued in November, 2008 and officially confirmed only this month, the prison term of the four men has been halved. Not only the authorities’ opponents condemned the decision, but some ruling party and government members have also spoken against the move.

The Public Defender offers the President to scrap the current commission and set up a new one composed of persons enjoying with “your trust” to which the President would delegate his powers of pardoning.

“No one should be pardoned without the decision of this [new] commission; it will be possible to make pardoning policy of the President transparent in that case,” Subari wrote.

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