The Public Defender positively assesses the decision of the Constitutional Court of Georgia of November 20, 2024 in the case of Giorgi Gulaberidze and Badri Shushanidze v. The Parliament of Georgia, by which it took note of the Public Defender’s amicus curiae brief.

The court declared the normative content of an article of the Criminal Procedure Code of Georgia unconstitutional. In particular, the article deprives a substitute judge, who was not appointed at the stage of transferring the case to the judge, of the opportunity to reconsider/re-examine the case/evidence; if:

1. the evidence, the assessment of the reliability of which requires the direct, personal participation of the judge, had been examined before his involvement in the case;
2. there is a need to clarify a specific issue/evidence and the substitute judge is unable, through examining the case materials, to fully assess the evidence, examined before his involvement in the case.

For years, the Public Defender has pointed out, in his parliamentary reports, the shortcomings identified in the practice of common courts. In particular, in a number of criminal cases, substitute judges were not appointed immediately after the commencement of the consideration of the case in its merits, and in most cases, when the composition of the court was changed, the consideration of the case in its merits did not start over. The judgements were based on evidence that the decision-maker judge had not directly examined.

In the Public Defender’s amicus curiae brief, the normative content of the law, according to which it is possible to appoint a substitute judge after the start of the consideration of the case, when the majority of the evidence in the case has already been examined at the hearings held by another judge and when the consideration of the case does not start over, contradicts the principle of direct examination of evidence. And he judgment delivered in violation of this principle cannot meet the standard protected by the right to a fair trial.

The Public Defender hopes that the implementation of the aforementioned decision will eliminate the shortcomings in the practice of common courts, which, in turn, will ensure the protection of an important aspect of the right to a fair trial.