Bill prevents human rights offenders from having state jobs

The Human Rights Committee of Parliament of Georgia has drafted a bill that better supports human rights in Georgia by preventing offenders of inhumane treatment from holding state or public service jobs.

The bill prohibited people who were officially recognised by a court of law as offenders of torture or inhumane treatment to never be eligible to work in the public sector or take political posts.

The prohibition is one part of the bill, which is currently being discussed by Georgian lawmakers, and mainly referred to facts of torture and inhuman treatment committed between 2012 and 2014 under the previous state leadership. 

Parliament is yet to approve the bill.

Head of Parliament’s Human Rights Committee Eka Beselia today said the addition about the job restrictions for human rights offenders in the bill was an initiative of the Parliamentary majority, and the Committee took their views into account and added it into the bill. 

On June 3 Georgian lawmakers presented a document that legally assessed facts of torture, inhumane treatment and other human rights violations that took place over eight years under the United National Movement (UNM) government.

Learn more about the document here. 

• A series of videos reflecting torture and inhumane treatment in Georgian prisons were released before the October 2012 Parliamentary Election. 
• After Georgian Dream (GD) defeated UNM in the elections, the new government seized and destroyed hundreds of videos recorded by UNM reflecting the private lives of people, inhuman treatment and torture. 
• Since 2012 the Chief Prosecutor’s Office said it had received thousands of complaints by alleged victims of inhumane treatment under UNM leadership. 

A special group established to create the document said they discussed 6,000 complaints, assessed the facts and wrote how the alleged violations could be responded. 

Now Georgia’s Parliament is discussing the document to make additional notes and approve it, after which recommendations will be sent to relevant state agencies on how to respond to the human rights violations.