Ombudsman positively assesses 2013 regarding human rights

Religious intolerance is named as the main challenge for Georgia in the annual report on human rights presented by the Public Defender at the Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel in Tbilisi on December 10. Ucha Nanuashvili says, compared with 2012, 2013 was less dramatic in regard to human rights in the country, overall.

"This year, our society witnessed painful cohabitation of two political powers, though this tension did not have any influence on the general situation, Nanuashvili stated.

He talked about both positive and negative trends in the past year.  

Positive trends

One of the positive changes Nanuashvili mentioned was the fact that the Parliament started taking the Ombudsmans recommendations into consideration and asking different public institutions to make specific steps in accordance to the Public Defenders instructions.

"One more positive trend was the reforms in the penal system. As a result of Mass Amnesty done by the government, and liberalization of the criminal law, the number of the inmates has reduced, so the problem of prison overcrowding has also been solved and the living conditions improved for the prisoners, the Public Defender noted.

During 2013, there was no case of torturing, inhuman treatment or humiliation identified in prisons. The number of recorded deaths has also reduced significantly, as Nanuahsvili stated.

The ombudsman also highlighted that in 2013, the trend of using preventative measures instead of detention was also positively changed.

"Besides, it is a positive tendency that the government has started to protect the right to a private life, Nanuashvili said, providing the fact of destroying secret recordings as a proof.

The Public Defender is satisfied with the changes in the Labour Code, too. Nanuashvili said that after the changes, the Georgian standards met with the International standards of human rights.

Negative Trends

As for the negative tendencies in 2013, Nanuahsvili stated that the government did not react to the religious intolerance cases properly.

One more problem for 2013, according to the Ombudsmans report, is the need to reduce the hiarchy held by some inmates in prisons.-. "I think the steps made by the government in order to solve this problem are not enough. This problem has been existed for years and it only deepened in 2013, Nanuashvili said.

Possible ill-treatment of citizens by Police is also named among the negative trends of 2013, in the report. "In 2013, a lot of citizens addressed to the Public Defenders Office, complaining about the inappropriate treatment committed by police, Nanuashvili said.

He suggested the government to create a special institute to investigate all individual cases of possible mistreatment of citizens from Police. Nanuashvili believes that for this kind of crime there should be an independent investigative organ.