France interested in Georgia’s innovative Juvenile Justice Code, says Minister
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Georgia’s innovative Juvenile Justice Code is gaining the interest of countries all over Europe, including France who is keen to learn from Georgia’s success and implement a similar law.
Today Justice Minister of Georgia Thea Tsulukiani said the youth offenders law had become a topic of conversation in eastern European countries but now western, developed countries "are also interested in our innovative approaches in this field”.
Through the Juvenile Justice Code Georgia’s Criminal Code has gained a totally new image,” Tsulukiani stated.
In June this year Georgia’s Parliament approved the new Juvenile Justice Code of Georgia, which met a range of international standards for youth offenders. The main changes related to the youth offender's criminal record and prison terms; specifically, life imprisonment for youth was now prohibited in Georgia.
Today Tsulukiani emphasised the positive reaction was the result of long, hard work by the Ministry of Justice.
After the long and complex work we adopted such approaches for children who have conflicts with the law, who are witnesses and more, which has caught the interest of France and other developed western countries,” she said.
The country’s new Juvenile Justice Code stated all criminal cases in Georgia involving minors would be handled by police officers, investigators, prosecutors and judges who specialised in juvenile offending.
Meanwhile looking ahead, Tsulukiani said the Ministry’s priority for the next year would be on children who worked and lived in the streets. She stressed the Ministry had started to create a National Strategy and Action Plan on how to address the problem with various state bodies and agencies.
The initial plans revealed the Ministry wanted to create a legal base for such children where they were safe, provide them with identity documents and address their daily problems.
Assisting Georgia’s Internally Displaced People (IDPs) into quality accommodation, supporting agricultural sector development and implementing modern punishment methods in the justice sector are some of the priority areas of the Government of Georgia.
Life imprisonment for juveniles is now prohibited in Georgia. The country has a new Juvenile Justice Code that meets international standards.
Georgia is establishing a special Juvenile Justice Code for people aged 18 and under so the country can provide a judicial system that meets European standards and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The past three years have been extremely busy for Georgia’s Ministry of Justice; the country signed an Association Agreement (AA) with the European Union (EU), began implementing visa liberalisation requirements and introduced various reforms to make the agency more transparent.
Georgia’s new Juvenile Justice Code is being applauded by international experts for its innovative ways to address youth crime and rehabilitate young offenders.
How do authorities supervise inmates on home detention?
Today a group of diplomatic corps and media representatives saw first-hand how the Ministry remotely controlled juvenile inmates from the newly established Electric Monitoring Centre of the National Probation Agency.
From now on the Ministry of Corrections will send convicts for different crimes in separate cells.
Over 3,000 juveniles have benefited from juvenile justice reforms which have been carried out in Georgia through the joint efforts of the Georgian Justice Ministry, the EU and UNICEF since 2010.
Reforms implemented by the Georgian Prosecutor General’s Office in domestic juvenile justice were discussed on Thursday in a meeting between Irakli Shotadze, the Prosecutor General of Georgia, and Jasper Moller, the newly appointed Representative of the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund in Georgia.