Shortcomings, Positive Trends in GYLA’s Criminal Trial Monitoring Report

On April 6, the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), a local watchdog, released the results of criminal trial monitoring, identifying shortcomings at different stages of trials, as well as positive trends in a period between March 2016 and February 2020.

GYLA said law enforcement agencies did not always have an adequate approach toward crimes committed due to grave social background, and did not take the circumstances into consideration when making decisions.

According to the report, the Prosecutor’s Office maintains a “strict approach” toward drug-related crime, while the Court mainly satisfies its demands for “insufficiently substantiated” imprisonment. Despite the Constitutional Court’s multiple rulings revision of punishments for drug-related offenses remains a problem, the document noted.

The watchdog said alternative measures of restraint, other than bail and imprisonment, were hardly ever applied in practice. 1,247 (93.6%) of 1,332 defendants were released on bail or sentenced to pretrial detention.

The document also noted that 518 (76%) out of 686 defendants appeared before their court hearings as detainees, a “noticeable” increase of 8% from the previous reporting period.

The report said the revision of the two-month pretrial detention has a “pro forma nature” as the court rarely replaces it with a lighter punishment. In 2018-2019, the court left detention unchanged in 92% (195 of 213) cases, while the figure increased to 96% (182 out of 190) in 2019-2020.

Also, the cases when the Prosecutor’s Office demanded imprisonment increased to 66% against the 45% reported during March 2017 – February 2018. According to the watchdog, in 2019-2020 “unsubstantiated” imprisonments increased by 21% from 2018-2019, when 49 (15%) of 322 prison sentences were “ungrounded.”

GYLA highlighted that in cases related to domestic violence or crimes, the prosecution mostly motions for imprisonment.

The report said that out of 49,272 motions requesting searches and seizures, only 676  (1%) were rejected by the court. Even those carried out without a prior court warrant were mostly done so without urgent necessity, the watchdog noted.

GYLA also said that delayed court hearings are problematic, as criminal cases “continue for years” without a verdict.

It reported that in 2019-2020, the court discussed in 9% of the plea agreements whether the sentence provided was legitimate, a “minor improvement” from the previous figure of 2-3%.

The watchdog highlighted that the number of acquittals increased to 9% in January-June 2020, compared to 3% in 2016.

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