Main speakers:
Giorgi Tugushi - Public Defender of Georgia
Ucha Nanuashvili - Executive Director of the Human Rights Center
Tamar Chugoshvili - Head of the Georgian Young Lawyer’s Association
Nino Danelia - Media Rresearcher – Georgian Institute of Public Affairs
Moderation – Gogi Gvakharia
“Death export,” unbearable conditions in Georgian prisons, and recommendations that require immediate reaction – those are the issues that the public defender of Georgia Giorgi Tugushi talked about and that are also reflected in the annual Ombudsman’s report of 2011. The annual report consists of 523 pages and mentions all critical problems that still exist in front of various state institutions as well as societal level and needs urgent cure.
What kind of assessment were followed to the public defenders report from the opposition side, when will the legislative body discuss the report published on March 31, what kind of societal tendencies was revealed by the report, how was the report covered by the media – this is the short list of questions posed to the speakers during the debates at the Heinrich Boell Foundation. Questions also referred to the report published by the U.S. State Department, improving the situation of disabled persons, issues about HIV infected persons and gender-related matters.
List of spheres that were covered by the public defender’s report is fairly long and refers to penitentiary and judicial system, rights of internally displaced persons, freedom of assembly and manifestation, legislation on labor freedom that determines labor relations, property rights in today’s Georgia, women’s and children’s rights, conditions within the religious and ethnic minorities and etc.
According to the Public Defender, in 2010 there was created two new chapters in the annual report – one of them refers to Eco migrants and another is about product safety. The report contains 308 recommendations out of which 89 was already sent to different institutions in an individual bases throughout the year. Alone to the issues of penitentiary and monitoring over orphanage’s were devoted more than 100 recommendations. Parts of those recommendations are general in their nature.
As remarked by the speakers, there is consistence between the reports of the Ombudsman’s office and the U.S. State Department as well as with some publications produced by various non-governmental organizations, and this fact speaks about their objectivity. Tamar Chugoshvili – the head of the Georgian Young Lawyers Association devoted biggest part of her speech to the report produced by the State Department. Media researcher Nino Danelia highlighted the role of media and the need of societal activeness and engagement. Another speaker Ucha Nanuashvili (HRIDC) called society for minding about root causes of societal problems and wider discussion.
Full text of the debate in Georgian (pdf, 246 KB)
