Georgia’s court reforms praised by Transparency International Georgia

The independence of courts in Georgia have improved greatly in the past three years, says non-governmental organisation (NGO) Transparency International Georgia.

The NGO conducted a three-year monitoring survey of administrative trials in eight courts across the country, involving 1,749 hearings and 771 cases and produced four monitoring reports.

Results of the survey showed several positive trends, particularly in the openness and transparency of court hearings, where court sessions were now open to the media and audio and video recordings of court are permitted.

Furthermore, the success rate of the state party reduced significantly in recent years, TI Georgia said.

"[The] success rate of state party was 85 percent (92 of 108) in the first monitoring period, by the fourth period the rate was 53 percent (141 of 268 cases).”

Similarly, there was a marked improvement in the punctuality of the court.

"Once TI Georgia started to monitor and advocate on the punctuality of the courts, the results became significantly better. For example, at TCC during the first monitoring period only 35 percent of hearings started on time, while during the fourth monitoring period 80 percent of hearings started on time,” the NGO said.

The report praised Georgia’s reform efforts in the judicial sector and noted some problems still remained, particularly in high-profile cases, while other issues appeared to be one-off events. Regardless, these issues needed to be addressed, TI Georgia said.

The NGO listed areas where improvement could be made to help the country continue its judicial reforms, including for judges to be more active in exercising their inquisitorial powers and for the courts to regularly publish information about upcoming hearings.

"TI Georgia hopes that ongoing problems revealed by its court monitoring project will be addressed, and that the improvements that TI Georgia has identified will continue in the future and will result in the improved administration of justice in Georgia.”

The TI Georgia survey was carried out at Tbilisi City Court (TCC), Batumi City Court (BCC), Kutaisi City Court (KCC), Gori District Court (GDC), Telavi District Court (TDC), Khelvachauri District Court (KDC), Zugdidi District Court (ZDC) and Rustavi District Court (RDC).