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To the government of Georgia:
Implement immediate reforms to discourage the abuse of
persons in custody, including the following:
- Require that correct and complete records be kept that
specify every person present during any given interrogation of a detainee
and every person who had access to the detainee at any time.
- Require that all interrogators, as well as medical and
other staff coming into contact with detainees, wear badges that identify
them by name and position.
- Ensure that all medical personnel in detention facilities
are attentive to detainee injuries and other possible signs of
mistreatment. All injuries or indications of mistreatment should be
documented in the greatest possible detail and promptly reported to the
proper authorities. The state must ensure that there are enough properly
trained medical staff and resources to do this.
- Notify family members immediately of an individuals
detention, and allow immediate access to detainees by close family members
and legal representatives.
- Fully investigate any and all allegations of abuse in a
systematic and impartial manner, and make the results of such
investigations public.
- Suspend any officials from active duty where they are
being investigated for having committed, ordered, sanctioned or tolerated
torture or mistreatment, and where credible evidence of such offenses
exist, refer the case for public prosecution.
Undertake legal reforms, including:
- Guarantee the right of immediate access to a lawyer of
choice for anyone who is detained or held for questioning by a law
enforcement officer in relation to a criminal investigation, whether or
not they are charged or suspected of a crime.
- Allow defendants or their lawyers to call a doctor or any
other witness to testify at any stage of criminal proceedings, including
hearings on the lawfulness of detention, as to torture or abuse of the
defendant.
- Ensure free legal counsel is available to any detainee who
cannot afford a lawyer, and that such lawyers are also free from
government influence.
Begin immediately much-needed systemic reforms, including:
- Ensure that persons who make plea bargains in Georgia do not thereby compromise their ability to bring claims of torture and other
mistreatment and pursue redress.
- Reform the procuracy to ensure that policing and judicial
tasks are performed by separate bodies that are fully independent of each
other.
- Strengthen the independence of the judiciary and ensure
that judges respond appropriately to torture allegations by ordering
investigations, taking protective measures, and disallowing evidence
procured by torture or mistreatment.
- Ensure that judges release defendants from custody subject
to guarantees to appear for trial in accordance with the laws of Georgia and international standards; this is particularly necessary in order to ensure that
defendants do not enter into plea bargains because of prolonged pre-trial
detention absent legitimate security concerns.
- Authorize an independent government body, adequately
funded through the state budget, to review the work of judges as it
relates to torture and impose appropriate sanctions where judges fail to
order investigations, take protective measures or disallow evidence
obtained through torture or other abuse.
- Request publication of the report on the visit to Georgia in 2003 and 2004 by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and
implement its recommendations.
- Create independent body to receive and investigate
allegations or torture and ill-treatment.
To the European Union:
- Incorporate, as a priority, concrete benchmarks for the
prevention of torture into the European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plan
that is to be jointly agreed with Georgia. The benchmarks should include
that the legislature reform the procuracy to ensure that policing and
judicial tasks are performed by separate bodies that are fully independent
of each other.
To the Council of Europe :
- Encourage the government of Georgia to publish the report
on the latest visit to Georgia by the European Committee for the
Prevention of Torture and to implement its recommendations.
To the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe:
- Increase monitoring of human rights cases, in particular
those involving torture and criminal procedure abuses, and regularly make
public and raise with the government the results of the monitoring;
- Consider setting up a trial monitoring program that will
result in a report with recommendations on strengthening the independence
of the judiciary.
To the United States and other Countries Engaged in Bilateral Security
Cooperation:
- Make any further security assistance conditional on the
Georgian government's reform of the procuracy and implementation of other
concrete steps to prevent torture, including the recommendations in this
briefing paper;
- Ensure that any further assistance to Georgian law
enforcement agencies to build capacity to collect and analyze forensic
evidence is specifically conditioned on the Georgian government's
provision of unimpeded access to prompt and impartial forensic medical
examinations for all detainees from the moment they are in custody, and
for all other individuals, whether in detention or not, who wish to
substantiate a report of abuse by a law enforcement or other official.
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