{"id":1932,"date":"2017-11-28T00:36:28","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T00:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rcstaging.co.uk\/ehrac\/?p=1932"},"modified":"2021-04-08T22:38:17","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T21:38:17","slug":"former-georgian-prime-ministers-detention-politically-motivated-says-european-court","status":"publish","type":[30],"link":"http:\/\/ehrac.org.uk\/en_gb\/former-georgian-prime-ministers-detention-politically-motivated-says-european-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Georgian Prime Minister\u2019s detention was politically motivated, says European Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t
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\u201cThe Grand Chamber has paved the way for individual victims of politically motivated detentions and prosecutions across Europe to challenge state abuse of power more effectively. This is a landmark judgment resetting the Court\u2019s case law on politically motivated proceedings. As we argued during the hearing in March 2017, it is frequently impossible for a person to directly prove that the aim of their detention or prosecution is political. Today the Court held that it will closely scrutinise the explanations of States and draw inferences from indirect evidence, as it has done in Mr Merabishvili\u2019s case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Philip Leach, EHRAC Director<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Today\u00a0the Grand Chamber of European Court of Human Rights<\/a>\u00a0reiterated\u00a0<\/a>that there were political motivations behind former Prime Minister and Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili\u2019s extended pre-trial detention, and it was misused to exert pressure on him. \u00a0He is represented by the\u00a0European Human Rights Advocacy Centre<\/a>\u00a0(EHRAC,\u00a0Middlesex University<\/a>, London) and Otar Kakhidze (Georgia).<\/p>\n

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EHRAC lawyers Philip Leach and Joanne Sawyer at the Grand Chamber hearing, March 2017.<\/p><\/div>\n

What happened?\u00a0<\/strong>Mr Merabishvili was arrested and detained in May 2013. In December 2013, he was taken from his Tbilisi prison cell in the middle of the night, and, with his head covered, was driven to an unknown destination where he was questioned by the Chief Public Prosecutor and the head of the Georgian prison service.\u00a0 They offered Mr Merabishvili a \u2018deal\u2019: to provide information about former President Mikheil Saakashvili, and the death of former Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, in exchange for a guarantee that he would be released and allowed to leave the country with his family. He refused to comply and was threatened with worsening prison conditions. He was convicted and sentenced to five years\u2019 imprisonment shortly afterwards.<\/p>\n

What does the Court say?\u00a0<\/strong>Although the charges on which Mr Merabishvili was originally arrested were reasonably based, the incident in December 2013 signalled that his continued pre-trial detention was used for a reason other than those specified, in violation of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). His detention was no longer justified, and was used to exert pressure on him, in violation of Article 18 ECHR, the object and purpose of which is\u00a0\u201cto prevent the misuse of power\u201d<\/em>. It highlighted that crucially, the Grand Chamber believed Mr Merabishvili\u2019s account of what happened to him on 14 December 2013 \u2013 when he was hauled out of his cell \u2013 which the Georgian government\u00a0flatly denied ever occurred.<\/p>\n

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Ivane Merabishvili appears during a preliminary hearing of his case. (Reuters)<\/p><\/div>\n

Why is this important?<\/strong>\u00a0Mr Merabishvili is just one of a growing number of people across the former Soviet space subjected to politically motivated detention and prosecution (for example,\u00a0Yulia Tymoshenko<\/a>,\u00a0Yuriy Lutsenko<\/a>,\u00a0Rasul Jafarov<\/a>). Such practices are fundamentally undemocratic and a serious misuse of power. Today\u2019s judgment shows that governments will be held to account for their actions.<\/p>\n

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What next?\u00a0<\/strong>The finding of political motivation by the European Court carries such weight that there is an onus on the authorities to investigate misuse of power and if necessary to reopen the criminal proceedings and quash the conviction.<\/p>\n

Find out more<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
This is the second\u00a0European Court ruling<\/a>\u00a0on this case \u2013 Mr Merabishvili won his first case:<\/em>\u00a0you can read about the original\u00a0precedent-setting decision<\/a>, and\u00a0its impact<\/a>, in some of our earlier pieces about the case.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
How did the Georgian Government justify its actions?<\/em>\u00a0You can watch the\u00a0European Court Grand Chamber hearing<\/a>\u00a0(March 2017) and\u00a0read about what we argued<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
For more on the context,\u00a0<\/em>the Georgian Democracy Initiative has published a report entitled\u00a0\u2018Politically biased justice in Georgia\u2019<\/a>, including\u00a0detailed analysis of Mr Merabishvili\u2019s case<\/a>. We also represent the\u00a0former Mayor of Tbilisi, Giorgi Ugulava,<\/a>\u00a0in a similar case.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Politically-motivated proceedings are also a systemic problem in Azerbaijan and Russia, in particular for\u00a0human rights lawyers<\/a>,\u00a0defenders<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0media outlets<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>EHRAC also represents\u00a0Rasul Jafarov<\/a>, whose arrest and detention were also found to be politically motivated in March 2016; the Council of Europe\u2019s Committee of Ministers\u00a0recently called on the Azerbaijani government to re-open his conviction<\/a>, which results from a \u2018political prosecution\u2019.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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