The Public Defender welcomes the submission of the draft law[1] to the Parliament of Georgia, which provides for the expansion of the investigative jurisdiction of the Special Investigation Service to certain crimes committed by prosecutors.

In 2022, after the Public Defender's appeal, the OSCE/ODIHR[2] report stated, among other things, that it was unclear why the investigation of the alleged cases of murder, serious injury to health, threats, violence, rape and trafficking committed by prosecutors was excluded from the competence of an independent investigative mechanism, whereas the mandate of the investigative agency covered similar crimes committed by representatives of other law enforcement agencies. The Public Defender submitted a legislative proposal[3] to the Parliament on the issue of providing sufficient guarantees for conducting an effective investigation by the Special Investigation Service, where the need for the mentioned change was also emphasized.

Thus, the Public Defender positively evaluates the planned amendment and hopes that the Parliament will support the mentioned draft law. At the same time, he calls on the Parliament to implement other recommendations of the Public Defender and OSCE/ODIHR aimed at institutional strengthening of the Special Investigation Service as well.

[1] See <https://info.parliament.ge/file/1/BillReviewContent/356667>

[2] See <https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/d/1/512728.pdf>

[3] Proposal No. 15/11047 of the Public Defender of Georgia of November 3, 2022.