Harsh sentence for juvenile offender raises questions about Georgia's justice system

Paul Rimple 9/22/06

The sentencing of a 14-year-old Tbilisi resident, Giorgi Zerekidze, to a 10-year prison sentence for attempted murder has raised questions about Georgia's largely unreformed juvenile justice system. With an appeal schedule for September 27, representatives of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and local human rights organizations maintain that putting Zerekidze behind bars would violate international norms.

The sentence, passed in July, has also raised concern about judges' sense of proportion in sentencing young offenders. According to the Georgian Criminal Code, juveniles between the ages of 16 and 18 can be imprisoned from 10 to 15 years, but only for especially serious crimes. A 23-year-old man was hurt in Zerekidze's attack, but did not sustain life-threatening injuries.

By comparison, in July, four interior ministry officials were given eight-year and seven-year sentences for the brutal January 2006 murder of banker Sandro Girgvliani. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Zerekidze's sentence has prompted a representative of UNICEF's Tbilisi office to claim that Georgia does not uphold the international Convention on the Rights of the Child it signed in 1994. "When the country adopts such a convention, it has the responsibility to implement it," commented Maya Kurtsikidze, a UNICEF communications officer.

To date, Kurtsikidze and other activists maintain that little has been done to raise the standards for juvenile justice in Georgia.

Separate juvenile courts do not exist. Judges, at a loss for alternatives, usually have children sit in prison while awaiting trial – a stay that can last "for more than a year," according to a September 2006 Human Rights Watch report. The vast majority of the children held in Georgian prisons – some 179 individuals, or 1.17 percent of the 11,731-strong prison population – are awaiting trial, according to May 2006 records obtained from the Georgian Penitentiary Department. The problem is compounded by an increasing number of children who are homeless, or who grow up in poverty, observers say. Shelters for street children routinely deny known juvenile offenders admittance.

For children in prison, no psychological counseling, education programs or other support services are available.

Some local human rights activists agree with UNICEF's assessment of Georgia's juvenile justice system over the past 12 years. "In general, the system is the same. Virtually nothing has changed," said Ucha Nanuashvili, director of the Human Rights Information & Documentation Centre in Tbilisi. While torture of juveniles no longer occurs, Nanuashvili affirmed, police continue to violate juveniles' rights by interrogating them without a parent or guardian present. "The president [Mikheil Saakashvili] has declared a zero tolerance policy [toward crime] and police and judges still commit violations," he added.

Despite repeated attempts, officials from Georgia's Justice Ministry did not make themselves available to comment on the Zerekidze case, or to respond to activists' allegations.

Many Georgian judges are not even aware of international standards in these cases, UNICEF's Kurtsikidze asserts. The United Nations' 1985 Beijing Rules on administration of juvenile justice, for instance, states that pre-trial detention should be used only as "a last resort" and for a limited time. "I reminded one judge of the Beijing Rules and he replied, ‘Why should I care what they do in Beijing?'" she recalled.

Interest in changing the juvenile justice system may exist among some judges, activists say, but a lack of non-governmental organizations focusing on the topic, and an overworked judicial system mean that reforms are unlikely to occur soon.

Political pressure has secured few results to date. Eka Timularia, a specialist with the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and Civil Integration, said that her committee had advocated a lighter sentence for Zerekidze, but the court did not consider the appeal. Timularia characterized the sentence passed as "extremely heavy."

Editor's Note: Paul Rimple is a freelance writer based in Tbilisi.