On July 15, 2024, the Public Defender of Georgia, Levan Ioseliani, presented a special report to the public and professional circles - "Mechanisms for Postponing the Execution of Sentences due to Illness, Old Age or Pregnancy and Exemption from Further Serving the Sentence in Georgia".

The Public Defender’s Office prepared the report based on the study of the cases of 194 convicts and the analysis of the relevant legislation.

At the opening of the presentation, the Public Defender talked about the importance of the effective use of the right granted to prisoners by legislation relating to the postponement of or exemption from the sentence, and presented specific recommendations to the state agencies, which were developed to eliminate the shortcomings identified in practice and legislation.

As it has been found, a number of regulations are missing, which would have facilitated the use of procedures for using preferential mechanisms.

• Reasonable terms of limitation of forensic examination reports;
• Petitions are often unsubstantiated;
• Deficiencies of judicial jurisdiction;
• Judicial practice in some cases is inconsistent;
• There is no legal regulation that would have established the possibility of holding an oral hearing in the court of appeal 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;
• Legislation does not allow the court to determine a different interval for repeated forensic examination or report submission, even if the prisoner's health condition is so severe that there is no prospect of recovery;
• In case of the postponement of a sentence, there is no regulation that would have allowed a prisoner to additionally apply to the court for the full exemption from the sentence due to age or health;
• Procedures for applying to the standing commission by the convict/his lawyer are unclear.

Rati Ionatamishvili, Chairman of the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee of the Parliament of Georgia, Shalva Tadumadze, Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court, and Nika Tskhvarashvili, Head of the Special Penitentiary Service, also delivered speeches at the event.

In order to improve the functioning of the existing preferential mechanisms for prisoners, the Public Defender will actively continue to work with all relevant agencies.

The event was held within the framework of the USAID-PDO partnership programme.