Georgian condom brand ‘Aiisa’ wins case against Georgia in ECHR
By Nika Gamtsemlidze
Friday, July 23
The European Court of Human Rights has found violations of Article 10, freedom of expression, in the case of Aiisa. The founder of the condom startup Ani Gachechiladze, whose rights were defended by GDI, won the case in the ECHR against Georgia.
The dispute concerned fines imposed on Aiisa in Georgia and court rulings in various instances in Georgia, which found that the labels and images on condom packaging violated the law on advertising and were unethical in that they insulted religion.
The European Court of Human Rights has clarified that the rulings rendered by the Georgian courts indicate that the views of the Georgian Orthodox Church on ethics have a predominance when it comes to different values guaranteed by the Georgian constitution and conventions.
The statement also reads that “in a pluralist democratic society those who choose to exercise the freedom to manifest their religion must tolerate and accept the denial by others of their religious beliefs and even the propagation by others of doctrines hostile to their faith”.
The lawsuit against Aiisa was filed by a political union called Georgia Idea, citing that the usage of Georgian historical monuments was “unethical” and was violating religious symbols. The Georgian Idea was also saying that the condom maker was violating “generally accepted human and moral norms”.
In 2018, the city court fined the company ?500 and gave it one week to remove the products from the market. Aiisa then addressed the Court of Appeals, which did not change the ruling of the City Court.
According to Mari Kapanadze, director of the GDI Civil and Political Rights Program, this decision by ECHR is particularly important in light of the fact that “in recent years and now [in Georgia] there is a tendency to restrict freedom of expression.”
One of the first to criticize the company for these designs was the Georgian Patriarchate, which issued a special statement calling the products ‘a blasphemy’ against the Georgian church.
Prior to the hearing of the European Court of Human Rights, the Ombudsperson of Georgia also assessed the decisions of the Georgian court regarding the Aiisa's case, an illegal restriction on freedom of expression.
“Restrictions on freedom of expression cannot be based primarily on the argument that religious or historical symbols and phrases are used in inappropriate contexts,” a Georgian human rights defender wrote in a 2019 report.
The European Court of Human Rights found that in 3 of the 4 cases the decision of the national court violated Article 10 of the Convention of Human Rights, which deals with freedom of expression, and in 1 case it abstained from the final decision. The decision of the European Court of Human Rights was published yesterday, on July 22.
