{"id":2090,"date":"2016-06-14T20:04:44","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T19:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rcstaging.co.uk\/ehrac\/?p=2090"},"modified":"2021-05-21T18:39:46","modified_gmt":"2021-05-21T17:39:46","slug":"european-court-former-georgian-prime-ministers-pre-trial-detention-used-to-exert-pressure-on-him","status":"publish","type":[30],"link":"http:\/\/ehrac.org.uk\/en_gb\/european-court-former-georgian-prime-ministers-pre-trial-detention-used-to-exert-pressure-on-him\/","title":{"rendered":"European Court: Former Georgian Prime Minister\u2019s pre-trial detention used to exert pressure on him"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t
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On 14 June 2016, the\u00a0European Court of Human Rights found<\/a>\u00a0that former Georgian Prime Minister Ivane Merabishvili\u2019s pre-trial detention was used to exert pressure on him and\u00a0\u201clacked reasonableness\u201d<\/em>. Mr Merabishvili is represented by the\u00a0European Human Rights Advocacy Centre<\/a>, based at\u00a0Middlesex University<\/a>\u00a0(London), and Otar Kakhidze, a lawyer based in Tbilisi.<\/p>\n

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

Mr. Merabishvili was the Georgian Prime Minister under President Mikheil Saakashvili for three months in 2012, and was formerly Minister of Interior.\u00a0 He later became the Secretary-General of the United National Movement (UNM) party. In the wake of the Georgian Dream coalition\u2019s victory in the October 2012 parliamentary elections, Georgia experienced a spate of\u00a0arrests of senior UNM figures<\/a>, including\u00a0Giorgi Ugulava (former Mayor of Tbilisi<\/a>). \u00a0Mr. Merabishvili was arrested on 21 May 2013, on charges of misspending GEL 5.2 million (a little more than \u20ac2 million) of public money. He remained in pre-trial detention for just under nine months; on 17 February 2014, he was convicted of vote-buying, misappropriation of another person\u2019s property and breach of inviolability of another person\u2019s home, and sentenced to five years\u2019 imprisonment. He is currently detained in a Tbilisi prison.<\/p>\n

In his case before the European Court, Mr. Merabishvili argued under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that the decisions ordering his pre-trial detention were based on unclear legal rules and lacked reasonable grounds. He also submitted that the domestic court failed to carry out a proper review of his request for release in its decision on 23 September 2013, and failed to provide reasons for rejecting his request. Finally, he claimed that the proceedings brought against him were aimed at excluding him from political life, weakening the UNM and preventing him from standing as a candidate in the October 2013 presidential elections (Article 18 with Article 5(1)).<\/p>\n

The European Court found that, although Mr. Merabishvili\u2019s pre-trial detention was lawful, it\u00a0\u201clacked reasonableness\u201d<\/em>, constituting a\u00a0\u201cparticularly broad restriction of [his] rights\u201d<\/em>\u00a0guaranteed by Article 5(3) ECHR. It noted that at the time that Mr. Merabishvili requested the Court to review the reasonableness of his pre-trial detention, he had been held in pre-trial detention for four months.\u00a0 The Court reiterated that, according to Georgian Law, the domestic court must provide reasoned oral or written decisions \u2013 a \u201cheightened obligation\u201d<\/em>\u00a0given the period for which Mr. Merabishvili had already been detained.<\/p>\n

In finding a violation of Article 18 the Court referred to an incident on 14 December 2013, when Mr. Merabishvili was taken from his cell late at night as part of investigations concerning other senior UNM members.\u00a0 Noting that the burden of proof in cases where Article 18 is alleged is an \u201cexacting\u201d one, the Court found that the applicant had presented a credible and convincing account of the incident, which he had promptly reported to the domestic authorities. \u00a0It therefore held that his pre-trial detention was used not only to bring him before a court but was\u00a0\u201calso treated\u2026as an additional opportunity to obtain leverage over the unrelated investigation into the death of the former Prime Minister and to conduct an enquiry into the financial activities of [Mr Saakashvili], two aims wholly extraneous to [Article 18 ECHR].\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cViolations of Article 18 of the European Convention are very few and far between \u2013 it is extremely rare in practice for the European Court to find that prosecutions have been brought for political or other ulterior purposes. This is the first such finding against Georgia \u2013 it is clearly a very serious matter given that it involves a former Prime Minister whose pre-trial detention was found to be based not only on legitimate grounds, but also on two \u2018wholly extraneous\u2019 reasons. The Court\u2019s findings indicate that in order to meet the standards required of a fully functioning democratic state, further systemic reforms of the judicial system are urgently needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

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This judgment reiterates that the authorities must provide ongoing justification for continued detention; it was not sufficient that Ivane Merabishvili\u2019s arrest and pre-trial detention were initially lawful and based on reasonable grounds. We also welcome the Court\u2019s finding of an Article 18 violation,\u00a0its second in one of our cases this year<\/a>. An allegation that a politician\u2019s activities have been restricted in order to prevent his participation in politics is a serious one given, as the Court said,\u00a0\u201cthe existence of a direct link between human rights protection and the functioning of democracy\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0 We are encouraged by the development of this area of the Court\u2019s case law.<\/p>\n

On 22 June 2016, the members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe issued a\u00a0declaration on the situation in Georgia in the run up to parliamentary elections<\/a>\u00a0this year, which stated:<\/p>\n

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\u201cAlready several times, facts of organised violence against opposition members of parliament and politicians by individuals linked with the Georgian Government have been reported. It is the responsibility of the Government to punish offenders and repeated failure to do so raises serious questions about the level playing field in Georgia.<\/em><\/p>\n

[\u2026]Mr Merabishvili\u00a0is only the third political figure in relation to\u00a0whom\u00a0this\u00a0breach was established by the Court.<\/em><\/p>\n

It should be said\u00a0that the practice of the Committee of Ministers in cases when a breach of this article was established has been\u00a0to recommend the release of the person concerned and the dropping of all charges. We call upon the President of Georgia to use his constitutional powers and respect this decision. The Secretary General of the main opposition party imprisoned in the run up to the elections and found to be deprived of Article 18 rights by the European Court already casts a shadow on these elections.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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