The Georgian government must halt the further erosion of safeguards against torture, said Human Rights Watch today. On Thursday, November 21, Interior Minister Koba Narchemashvili demanded regressive new amendments to Georgia’s already seriously flawed criminal procedure code, and parliament indicated it would pass whatever he proposed.
The interior minister was summoned before parliament to account for rising crime after last Wednesday’s murder in central Tbilisi of Kakhi Asatiani—a businessman and former soccer star. In parliament, Narchemashvili first blamed legislators for having adopted a criminal procedure code that he said ties his ministry’s hands. He then demanded extension of the 12 hours the code currently allows the police to detain suspects incommunicado, and suggested that his ministry should take back some operational control of pre-trial detention facilities from the Ministry of Justice. In a television program that night, Narchemashvili proposed that witnesses be stripped of the right to legal representation.
“What the interior minister is pushing for is a torturers’ charter,” said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division. “Both the Council of Europe and the U.N. have demanded more safeguards for detainees in Georgia, but now the Interior Ministry proposes the exact opposite.”
Georgian law enforcement officials commonly torture detainees and breach provisions of the criminal procedure code guaranteeing due process. In April, the U.N. Human Rights Committee expressed concern about “widespread and continuing subjection of prisoners to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by law enforcement officials and prison officers” in Georgia. The Ministry of Justice forensic bureau confirmed to Human Rights Watch yesterday at least four cases of police use of electric shock torture this year, and instances of forged signatures on detainees’ statements to police. Regular screening of detainees transferred from police stations to Ministry of Justice-controlled pre-trial detention facilities has revealed dozens of beating victims and breaches of the 72-hour maximum set by law for police detention.
In 1998, under Council of Europe guidance, Georgia adopted a new criminal procedure code that strengthened due process protections for detainees. But in May and July 1999—just weeks after Georgia’s accession to the Council of Europe—the Georgian parliament adopted dozens of regressive amendments to the code, stripping away these protections, including the right to file a complaint with a court about abuse or torture during pre-trial detention. Human Rights Watch’s concern over these amendments prompted the publication in October 2000 of its report, Backtracking on Reform: Amendments Undermine Access to Justice.
“The 1999 amendments were a huge step backwards. The harmful effect they had on detainees’ rights needs to be reversed—not exacerbated,” said Andersen.
One present criminal procedure code provision hands the police 12 hours effectively to do whatever they wish with detainees, before giving them access to a lawyer or doctor. The 12-hour rule is at variance with Georgia’s constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Georgia is a party. Georgia’s Ombudswoman Nana Devdariani and two nongovernmental organizations have filed a challenge to its validity with the Constitutional Court. Nevertheless, the interior minister has now complained that 12 hours of incommunicado detention is an insufficient amount of time for police officers.
The 1999 amendments also stripped witnesses of the right to legal representation, but a June 2001 amendment restored this right. On Thursday, Narchemashvili argued that it was a superfluous right, and should be removed from the code. However, in the “Backtracking on Reform” report, Human Rights Watch documented the common police tactic of purposefully classifying detained suspects as witnesses in order to deprive them of access to counsel and other rights.
In his appearance before parliament, Narchemashvili argued that criminal investigations suffered because police were no longer able to conduct “operative measures” in pre-trial detention facilities. In early 2000, the Georgian government transferred control over these facilities from the Interior Ministry to the Ministry of Justice, in compliance with its Council of Europe obligations. Since then, the facilities have become more transparent to scrutiny.
“The police regularly abuse the powers they have now,” said Andersen. “Giving them even more won’t solve the crime problem. That can only happen if the police earn the public’s trust.”
But even the Georgian government acknowledges a vast deficit in public trust of police. In 2001, the government established a commission to devise a new criminal procedure code and a plan to reform Georgia’s security and law enforcement agencies. In September 2002, the commission issued a report acknowledging that: “The scale of corruption within the law enforcement system seriously hinders the process of establishing a law-based country, and reduces confidence in justice and the rule of law.” The report also underlined the need for the government to demonstrate political will if reforms are to succeed.
Several cases documented this year have highlighted police corruption. In June, 60 Minutes, a television investigative program, exposed the head of the Interior Ministry’s anti-narcotics department instructing an informant to plant drugs on someone the department could then extort money from to drop charges. On September 27, more than 20 police officers raided a local television station in Zugdidi, beating staff and smashing equipment. The station had cooperated with 60 Minutes on a report about police involvement in gasoline smuggling from Abkhazia. On the same day, police allegedly mistreated the mother and 10-year-old son of the program’s Zugdidi correspondent.
“The Georgian government should be pressing forward with criminal justice reform,” said Andersen. Human Rights Watch urged the Georgian government to immediately introduce amendments to rectify the worst faults of the present criminal procedure code, including to abolish the 12-hour rule, and to restore to detainees the right to petition a court at any time with complaints of abuses committed against them during the pre-trial investigation. Human Rights Watch also recommended the introduction of mechanisms to ensure swift investigations and remedies on behalf of prisoners found at initial screenings to have been subjected to injuries or violations of the 72-hour detention deadline at police stations.