Situation in prisons on positive trend
By Messenger Staff
Tuesday, September 27
The Committee of Ministers, a statutory decision-making body in the Council of Europe (CoE), has released a document highlighting the improved situation in Georgian prisons under the current Georgian Government.
The Committee concluded that by taking the verdicts made by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in relation to Georgian citizens into account and following their recommendations, Georgia's prison problem was slowly being resolved.
One of the cases provided by the Committee was named as Aliev vs Georgia, where a citizen of Georgia with the surname of Aliev, claimed he was a victim of inhumane treatment in Number 5 prison in Tbilisi under the previous Shevardnadze and United National Movement (UNM) Governments.
The ECtHR stressed in its verdict that for a year and four months, from September 6, 2003 (the Shevardnadze’s era) to January 1, 2005 (UNM governance), Aliev was a subject of inhumane and degrading treatment in a cell “he shared with 15 other prisoners.”
The Court granted the applicant € 10,000 for non-pecuniary damage that was paid in 2008, but without proper, local investigation of the case.
“On September 6, 2016, the Georgian authorities informed the Secretariat of the Committee of Ministers that a new investigation had been initiated in the case and that the information related to it would be submitted by the end of November 2016,” the Committee said.
The Committee said the Georgian prison overcrowding problem has actually been settled.
The Committee announced:
At the end of 2011 (under the UNM) the number of inmates amounted to 24, 114;
Thanks to the amnesty law adopted by the parliament [under the current Georgian Dream authorities ] on December 28 2012, the number was reduced, and by October 2014, the number of prisoners amounted to 10,158;
In 2015 the number of prisoners was 9,716.
“The overall situation in the penitentiary institutions reveals a positive shift and that the steps taken by the Government are truly focused on the improvement of the conditions of imprisonment in question,” the Committee stated.
