On August 16, 2017, the Public Defender of Georgia addressed Tbilisi City Hall’s Supervision Municipal Service with a recommendation on the examination of the specificities of the case of construction offense.

On August 16, 2017, the Public Defender’s Office established that the Supervision Municipal Service did not take into consideration important specificities of the mentioned case. The applicant indicated that the legal content and consequences of the interim decision of the administrative body were unclear to him. In particular, during consideration of the case of construction violation due to the unauthorized construction of a fence, J.T. requested from the administrative body to extend the term for elimination of the violation, indicating that he had built the wire fence until 2007 and had been expecting a reply from the relevant agency with regard to the recognition of property rights on a land plot. The administrative body issued an order on the extension of the term of the consideration of the case so that the order did not include any explanation about the satisfaction or refusal of the applicant's request, which made the applicant think that an additional 2-month term was given to him for eliminating the violation.

Instead of fulfilling the duty of rendering legal assistance, the administrative body received a strictly formal decision to fine the applicant GEL 10 000 two days before the expiration of the 2-month deadline without considering the individual factors of the case. By that time, J.T. had already started to dismantle the fence - in particular, despite his old age and weak physical condition, he had already removed part of the unauthorized wire fence and had planned to completely dismantle it in the remaining 2 days.

Thus, it has been revealed that the actions of J.T. were not caused by his conflicting attitude with the law, but with the lack of access to full and qualified legal assistance, and the lack of legal knowledge, as the administrative body did not provide clear explanation about the legal consequences of the relevant administrative-legal act.

According to the Public Defender, formal understanding/application of the norm prevents qualified and honest administration. In the process of reviewing each particular case, it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of the given situation. Otherwise, administrative proceedings become a formal procedure.

Consequently, the Public Defender of Georgia addressed the Supervision Municipal Service with a recommendation to invalidate the abovementioned decision and make a new decision after thorough examination of the circumstances of the case.