On January 18, 2018, Public Defender Nino Lomjaria filed amicus curiae brief with Tbilisi Court of Appeals in connection with the case of G.O. as she considered that in contrast with the Constitution of Georgia, the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the material criminal and procedural laws of Georgia, the judgment of the first instance court might cause:

• Artificial creation of the multitude of offenses due to the conviction under general and special articles and toughening of the responsibility
• Use of inadmissible evidence against the defendant in order to prove the assumption expressed in the judgment
• An unsubstantiated judgment in terms of assessment of evidence, which is related to the mandate of the Public Defender.

The Public Defender of Georgia considers that it is necessary to focus on the human rights standards established by the Georgian legislation and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights and to properly reflect them in the judgment.

The Public Defender considers that the Court of Appeals should take the abovementioned circumstances into account within the framework of considering the compliant and present a substantiated position on the issues in question, as the resolution of the circumstances indicated in G.O.’s appeal directly affect the individual's rights and freedoms in this particular case, as well as the development of the court's further practice.