ECtHR: Georgia must pay €35,000 for violations committed by former gov’t

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, France says the human rights of a former Georgian aviation expert were violated under the previous United National Movement (UNM)-led government.

The ECtHR’s released its verdict today that stated Georgia’s previous state leadership violated the right to liberty and security, and the right to a fair trial in relation to a case involving the former head of Georgia’s Civil Aviation Agency (CAA) Zurab Tchankotadze.

Tchankotadze held the position between March 2002 and March 2004, and died in 2013. 

In the verdict the Court said Tchankotadze’s right to liberty and security, and right to a fair trial were violated after he was charged with abuse of power in March 2004.

Today the ECtHR said Georgia must pay Tchankotadze’s family €20,000 in nonpecuniary damages and €15,000 in costs and expenses. 

The ECtHR case was titled Tchankotadze v. Georgia and it concerned the pre-trial detention of the former CAA head and his criminal conviction of abuse of power. 

The ECtHR observed that the former Georgian authorities had prosecuted Tchankotadze for his failure to abide by a judgment of the Constitutional Court of January 2003, which had allegedly banned the CAA from charging any fees to civil aviation companies.

 However the ECtHR noted that in regards to the reasoning of the 2003 judgement, it could not be concluded that the Constitutional Court had entirely forbidden the CAA from entering into service agreements with civil aviation companies. 

Therefore the ECtHR found it difficult to understand that the District Court in Georgia, when convicting Tchankotadze, had not given any meaningful answer to his defence argument that he had merely followed the Constitutional Court’s indication to enter into such contractual relationships.

Tchankotadze was arrested on March, 16 2004 and spent four years in prison without recognising his guilt. He was released in 2007 and died in January 2013. 

Several years earlier Tchankotadze was awarded a special state order for service to his country after he successfully completed a military task where he managed to survive and transport many people from de facto Abkhazia region during the armed conflict in 1992-1993.