Head of the Department - Irine Oboladze

Deputy Head of the Department - Nino Valikov

The Department for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was established on January 15, 2015. Before that, the Center for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had been functioning in the Public Defender’s Office, which was established with the financial support of the Government of Liechtenstein in September 2008.

The Department for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities acts on behalf of the Public Defender of Georgia when performing its functions.

The Department is guided by the Constitution of Georgia, relevant international conventions and treaties, Organic Law of Georgia on the Public Defender of Georgia, Statute of the Public Defender’s Office and national legislation regulating the field.

The main tasks of the Department are to promote the protection of universally recognized rights of persons with disabilities by the Public Defender of Georgia in accordance with the Constitution of Georgia and the basic principles and norms of international law; promote, protect and monitor the implementation of the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Georgia; monitor the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities in Georgia; ensure constant contact and close cooperation with state and private bodies/organizations, as well as civil society representatives working on the rights of persons with disabilities; raise civic awareness in the direction of the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities.

In order to fulfill the above-mentioned tasks, the functions of the Department are to: examine applications/complaints received by the Public Defender's Office relating to the violations of the rights of persons with disabilities and draft relevant reports/recommendations/proposals; monitor the implementation of the measures of promotion and protection of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Georgia; study and generalize problems in the field of protection of the rights of persons with disabilities in Georgia; lobby the interests of persons with disabilities in the process of development of state policy; control the practical implementation of the recommendations issued by the Public Defender of Georgia according to the areas within its competence; cooperate with similar services of other countries to study their practices, develop relevant recommendations/proposals for the establishment of international standards in Georgia; actively cooperate with the media relating to the topics of the rights of persons with disabilities; perform other functions that are inherently related to the specifics of the Department.