Interior Ministry informs foreign, local organisations of investigative system reform

Georgian Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia spoke at a conference today providing local and international organisations with information regarding the investigative system reforms in the police.

Gakharia stated that no type of reform has been carried out in the criminal police over the course of the past 15-20 years.

Gakharia mentioned the word “intellectual core” in terms of the investigative team and stated that investigators will become less dependent on prosecutors in the decision-making process. Photo: Interior Ministry press office. 

Of course, the absence of reforms influenced the police activities. I mentioned the 15-20 years to pinpoint where we started reforms from”, Gakharia said.

He said current criminal police reforms are separating investigative and district police activities, and stated that the Interior Ministry is ready to listen to all views and “very critical but fair remarks” to achieve improved quality in the police system.

Gakharia admitted that the low qualification of the Interior Ministry staff in certain areas is a problem which must be addressed.

The first thing we did was evaluate the qualification level of all, more than 1,200 investigators of the Interior Ministry. Based on the evaluation we came up with training courses,” Gakharia said.

He stated that the Interior Ministry will also completely change staff-hiring procedures to select more highly-qualified employees.