Tornike Cheishvili, Deputy Minister of Justice, spoke at the event about the positive trends reflected in the CPT monitoring document.
It was noted that according to the report of the European Committee, there is a positive and calm relationship between the staff of the penitentiary institutions and the prisoners and that the delegation did not receive information about any facts of improper treatment of the prisoners by the prison staff.
Tornike Cheishvili also spoke about the CPT’s evaluation of the healthcare system of the penitentiary service and noted that the committee considers the treatment of communicable diseases in penitentiary institutions to be quickly and easily accessible and gives a particularly high rating to the practice of managing COVID, as a result of which, despite the pandemic, it was possible for prisoners to Maintaining contact with the outside world.
As for the recommendations recorded in the report, according to the deputy minister, some of them have already been taken into account and reflected in the 10-year strategy of the Ministry of Justice. In particular, a new strategy for managing sports in the penitentiary system has already been approved; sports fields have been renovated; the Digital University program was launched. In order to eliminate the existing challenges at the legislative level, active work is already underway on the new prison code, which will be presented to the Parliament of Georgia in the fall session:
“A relevant inter-departmental group, a new prison code, and the activity of the said work platform will be focused on the fact that any issue that may be acute in practice today will first of all be eliminated at the legislative level,” said Tornike Cheishvili.
The review of the extraordinary monitoring report carried out by the CPT in Georgia was organized by the Public Defender of Georgia and was attended by representatives of state agencies, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, international organizations and the diplomatic corps.
