Head of the Department - Mikheil Mindadze

Deputy Head of the Department - Maia Mashkarishvili

The Department represents a primary structural unit of the Public Defender’s Office of Georgia. When performing its functions, the Department shall act on behalf of the Public Defender of Georgia.

The Department’s activities include the following areas:

• chancellery;
• hotline;
• reception of citizens;
• checking compliance of applications/complaints with the competence of the Public Defender;

The main functions of the Department shall be to:

• coordinate the reception of citizens by the Public Defender’s Office, provision of high-quality consultation to them and proper document circulation in the Office;
• ensure the primary examination of applications received by the Public Defender's Office, check their compliance with the competence of the Public Defender according to the relevant structural units and respond to them within the competence;
• ensure archival production of the Office;
• provide services to the interested persons through hotline;
• ensure smooth, continuous and high-quality functioning of the telephone hotline, document circulation and case-management software;
• evaluate the cases reported through communication channels and plan response to them, timely organize on-site visits at weekends and during non-working hours within the scope of competence;

The Department shall essentially consider applications/complaints:

• relating to the provision of information and the dates of court hearings relating to the issues of children’s rights;
• alleged violations of procedural rights during the consideration of civil and administrative cases by court and protracted court hearings relating to the issues of children's rights;
• protracted decision-making by the High Council of Justice on disciplinary cases of judges, except for the cases of disciplinary responsibility of judges considering criminal cases;
• issues related to checking the legality of the decisions taken by the commission on the recognition of the ownership right relating to the plots of land owned (used) by physical persons and legal entities of private law;
• issues related to electricity, natural gas and water supply outages and/or debts, which requires a response from the National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission of Georgia.