Female President Pardons Female Inmates for New Year
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Friday, January 4
First female President of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili has pardoned three females inmates for the New Year.
President is the only authorized official in Georgia who is allowed by the law to pardon inmates with the help of his/her Pardon Commission.
The president’s administration says that one of the women who has been pardoned is pregnant, another has an underage child and the third is a mother of three children.
Zurabishvili intends to recompose the Pardon Commission.
The President’s Pardon Commission is composed of 10 individuals and a chairperson.
The current head of the commission is former journalist Zviad Koridze.
The commission is composed of lawyers from the civil sector, public figures, the Public Defender and a spiritual representative from Georgia’s Patriarchate.
The group is obliged to discuss all cases sent to the Pardon Commission by inmates or their families and decide which prisoners they believe deserve to be pardoned. The list then is sent to the president.
The commission and former president Giorgi Margvelashvili have been grilled by the Georgian Dream ruling party members for pardoning of several individuals who committed severe crimes again in 2018.
Zurabishvili was endorsed by the ruling party for the presidential post.
