Georgia praised for allowing OSCE experts to monitor high-profile trials

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) appreciates the Georgian Government’s "very important step” of inviting OSCE experts to Georgia to monitor the trials of ex-senior officials.

OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) director Michael Georg Link, who is paying a two-day visit to Georgia, said this step showed that facts were far more important than rumors for the Georgian Government.

This was the first time the OSCE had a real opportunity to monitor Georgian judicial proceedings this intensively, he said.

The OSCE official and Georgia’s Foreign Minister Tamar Beruchashvili spoke at a joint press conference in Tbilisi earlier today, where Beruchashvili thanked the ODIHR for working so closely with Georgia.

"We thank the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights for its close cooperation. In particular, for the activities carried out in 2013-2014 by the observation mission for the trials of the former senior officials of Georgia and also the recommendations the OSCE Office has developed in order to improve the judicial system in Georgia.”

She added: "It should be noted that this was the first precedent, in general, when the Government of Georgia had invited the ODIHR on its own initiative to ensure more transparency of trials.”

A delegation of ODIHR, the OSCE’s main human rights body, arrived in Tbilisi earlier today. During their two-day stay in Georgia the delegation will go to several Georgian villages located near the Administrative Boundary Line of Georgia’s breakaway Tskhinvali region (South Ossetia), and then to Tserovani, a Georgian settlement inhabited by the people who were internally displaced as a result of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war.

The Georgian side was interested in increasing the OSCE’s involvement in the resolution of the Russia-Georgia conflict.