On October 22, 2022, Nazi Janezashvili, the Director of the Georgian Court Watch, together with local lawyers and representatives of civil society, held a briefing regarding the delay of cases in the Kutaisi City Court, after which another meeting of the court watch network was held.
Among the challenges in the judicial system, the issue of overloading the court, which hinders the use of timely and quality justice, remains an unsolved problem.
The 2017-2021 strategy of the judicial system envisaged systematic ways to solve this problem, but unfortunately, the strategy was not implemented, only continuing to exist on paper.
There are many protracted civil and criminal cases in the Kutaisi City and Appeals Court, which significantly harms the right to a fair trial and in some cases renders the administration of justice meaningless.
At the meetings of the Kutaisi network of court watchers, lawyers and representatives of civil society repeatedly mentioned the problem of judges' workload and delayed cases in court.
One of the reasons for the delay of cases is unfilled vacancies in the system of general courts because the Supreme Council of Justice does not appoint the appropriate number of judges. This problem is particularly acute in the courts of different regions, where there is a tendency for judges to transfer to Tbilisi or cities close to Tbilisi.
• There are 15 judges and 7 vacant seats in the Kutaisi Court of Appeal; • There are 9 judges and 4 vacancies in Kutaisi city court.
The large flow of cases in the court is exacerbated by the improper decisions of the Council of Justice regarding the administration of justice and the appointments of judges without the rule of competition, which does not serve to relieve the judges, on the contrary.
The unreasonableness of the administration of the Supreme Council of Justice is also indicated by the decision of October 14, 2022. In particular, the judge of the Kutaisi city court, Malkhaz Chubinidze, was promoted to the Kutaisi appeal court by the Supreme Council of Justice. The Council did not take into account the workload of the Civil Affairs Board of the Kutaisi City Court, where Malkhaz Chubinidze exercised judicial authority. In the past years, there have been many similar cases when, despite the number of cases, the Supreme Council of Justice made decisions without studying the needs at the local level.
The transfer of judges from local courts to the courts located in Tbilisi without competition leads to the delay of the hearing of cases and the violation of procedural deadlines.
For example, according to the information of a member of the court watchers' network, the judge accepted one of the cases in November 2019, and completed its review in February 2022; And another case, which was related to the alleged discrimination of a pregnant woman by the employer, was accepted in the proceedings in August 2019, and the review was completed on June 30, 2021. In addition, examples of protracted criminal cases are also common.
It should be noted that pending cases in the Kutaisi City Court, i.e., the review of which has not been completed, are 42% of cases in the civil collegium of the court, 37% in the criminal collegium, and 56% in the administrative collegium.
The justification of court decisions is directly related to the implementation of effective justice, where judges and their assistants have a special role. Accordingly, the abundance of cases in the court not only overwhelms the judges, but also the people employed in the court, especially the assistants. The primary function of the latter is to prepare the case for the judge to review at the hearing, as well as work on draft decisions/judgments/sentences.
According to the job description, the assistants of the judges of the Kutaisi City Court have 18 different types of responsibilities, and the salary is quite low. In addition, this brings up questions about the different attitudes of the Supreme Council of Justice regarding the salary of the assistant judge of Kutaisi and Tbilisi City Courts.
According to the decree of the Supreme Council of Justice of January 18, 2022, the official salary of a judge's assistant in the Tbilisi City Court amounts to 2090 GEL, and in the Kutaisi City Court - 1659 GEL. It is not clear what the approach of the Supreme Council of Justice is based on when it envisages a lower salary for the judge’s assistant of the Kutaisi City Court than for the judge’s assistant of the Tbilisi City Court.
Accordingly, we call on the Supreme Council of Justice to equalize the amount of official salary of court officials and to implement appropriate measures to eliminate delays in cases in the Kutaisi City Court.
