Transparency criteria according to the Tbilisi Court of Appeal practice assessment

Information on the court's website

Tbilisi Court of Appeals published 383 news stories between 2013-2023, a period of nearly ten years, of which:

• Press Releases/News - 198;
• Interesting Decisions - 81 (last updated February 5, 2018);
• Social Court category - 6, which only includes the period from 2015 through 2017; (last updated September 15, 2017);
• Continuing Education category - 69 (last updated February 6, 2019);
• Court Tour Category - 29 (last updated December 7, 2018).

198 Press Releases/News:

• 2013 – 4
• 2014  – 62
• 2015  – 41
• 2016 – 19
• 2017 – 28
• 2018 – 9
• 2019 – 5
• 2020  – 4
• 2021 – 5
• 2022 – 6 (three of them concerned condolences.)
• By April 2023 - 15

81 Interesting decisions:

• 2013 - 3
• 2014 - 21
• 2015 - 18
• 2016 - 8
• 2017 - 28
• 2018 - 3
• 2019 - 0
• 2020 - 0
• 2021 - 0
• 2022 - 0
• By April 2023 - 0

6 News - Social Court:

• 2013 – 0
• 2014 – 0
• 2015 – 1
• 2016 – 1
• 2017 – 4
• 2018 – 0
• 2019 – 0
• 2020 – 0
• 2021 – 0
• 2022 – 0
• 2023 (by April) – 0

69 News – Continuing education:

• 2013 - 4
• 2014 - 26
• 2015 - 18
• 2016 - 5
• 2017 - 8
• 2018 - 7
• 2019 - 1
• 2020 - 0
• 2021 - 0
• 2022 - 0
• 2023 (by April) - 0

29 News – Court tour:

• 2013 – 0 news – court tour;
• 2014 – 0 news – court tour;
• 2015 – 6 news – court tour;
• 2016 – 11 news – court tour;
• 2017 – 11 news – court tour;
• 2018 – 1 news – court tour;
• 2019 – 0 news – court tour;
• 2020 – 0 news – court tour;
• 2021 – 0 news – court tour;
• 2022 – 0 news – court tour;
• 2023 (by April) – 0 news – court tour.

Since 2013, the statistics of news articles published on the website of the Tbilisi Court of Appeals have been steadily declining. The most critical years are 2018 and 2022 - when the fewest news articles were posted (total 41).

For nearly ten years, particularly for the appellate court, material released on the website has been scant, demonstrating the court's lack of openness and transparency.

Court tour (16%)
Continuing education (37%)
Social court (3.2%)
Court decisions (44%)

It is unclear how the court selects information concerning cases/decisions for posting on the website. In this regard, it should be highlighted that the majority of the data comes from criminal cases, more specifically:

• More than 50% of criminal cases;
• Less than 50% of civil cases;
• Only one administrative case judgment is posted on the website.

Other available information on the website of the Tbilisi Court of Appeals

It should also be mentioned that the website of the Tbilisi Court of Appeals provided two contradicting figures regarding the number of justices.

For example, in the summary information on judges, we read that the court has 75 judges, yet according to the High Council of Justice's list and data, there are only 74 judges.


 
In the case of judges, there is no reference to their biography. In addition, all judges, except the presiding judge, have information on the assistant judge next to their names. There is no information available about the Assistant to the Chairperson of the Tbilisi Court of Appeal, Mikheil Chinchaladze. 

Name, Last name: Mikheil Chinchaladze
Position: Judge
Chairman
Name, Last name: Vephkhia Lomidze
Position: Judge
Criminal Cases Chamber
Nana Undilashvili
Assistant to a Judge
Human Resources and Legal Support Service
(+995 32) 251-85-21/22/23 (1232)
Name, last name: Mzia Lomtatidze
Position: Judge
Criminal Cases Chamber
Nana Gigitashvili
Assistant to a Judge
Human Resources and Legal Support Service

Other information

Also of interest is the audio, video, and photo website content, which hasn't been updated in about ten years.

• There were six videos uploaded in 2012-2013;
• The photo gallery was last updated in 2014;
• The audio gallery contains only one file, dated 2013. The guest of the program Law: Valeri Tsertsvadze (former Chairperson of the Tbilisi Court of Appeals).

No publications have been posted on the website since 2015, though announcements on international standards, judgments, and views have been published before that. Concerning the posting of brochures on the website, it has not been updated since 2015.

According to the press service section of the Tbilisi Court of Appeal's website, “only the cairperson of the court, the speaker judge, and the press secretary are authorized to communicate with the media regarding the interpretation of court decisions.” It should be noted that it is uncertain to what extent the chairperson, speaker judge, and press secretary of the Tbilisi Court of Appeals (information about the latter is not available on the website) exercise these powers, as information about their briefings is not available online. 

It should be noted that the forms of complaint and cross-complaint are available on the court's website for persons concerned. There is also a public information request and application forms, an administrative complaint form, and non-compliant forms for civil cases.

Concerning statistics, data for all three categories of cases have been released from 2007 to 2022, as have annual public information requests and release reports containing data from 2013 through 2022.

Court decisions

We encounter several challenges when it comes to publishing court decisions:

• The Tbilisi Court of Appeals judgments have not been published on the unified court database since April 2020. It should be highlighted that the issue of publication of decisions issued by other courts is similarly problematic in this regard;
• When visiting the column of decisions listed on the Tbilisi Court of Appeal website, the most recent published decision is dated back to 2019, with no recent decisions posted;

On the Tbilisi Court of Appeals website there is no link to a unified court database where a concerned party could obtain information about court schedules or judgments even as of 2020.

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