Tbilisi: Levan loseleani, the Public defender of Georgia has presented a special report to the public and professional circles. The report is titled as “Mechanisms for postponing the execution of the sentence due to illness, old age or pregnancy and exemption from further serving the sentence in Georgia.”
It is to be specifically mentioned that the Office of the Public Defender prepared the report based on the study of 194 convicts’ cases and the analysis of regulatory legislation. At the presentation’s opening ceremony the Public Defender discussed the importance of effectively using the rights granted to prisoners by the legislation on the postponement of the sentence and the release.
He further presented specific recommendations to the state agencies to eliminate the gaps identified in the practice and legislation and protect the rights of citizens as well especially in following areas
- Reasonable terms of limitation of medical examination conclusions
- Petitions are often unsubstantiated
- Defects of judicial jurisdiction are revealed
- Judicial practice is inconsistent in some cases
There is no legal regulation that would establish the possibility of holding an oral hearing in the appeals court and prescribe the procedure for reviewing the evidence that was examined in violation of the law during the review of the petition in the court of first instance
Georgian legislation does not allow the court to determine a different interval for repeated medical examination and presentation of the report, even if the prisoner’s health condition is so severe that there is no prospect of recovery. Similarly there is no regulation that would allow a prisoner whose execution of the sentence has been postponed to apply to the court for a full release from the sentence due to age or health.
Moreover the procedures for applying to the Permanent Commission by the convict/his lawyer are unclear in the legal provision and need immediate attention.
