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The sentencing of a 14-year old Giorgi Zerekidze to seven years imprisonment for injuring 23-year-old Levan Bochorishvili with a pocket knife - labelled as an “attempted murder” - raises question about the legitimacy of the juvenile justice system in Georgia. Despite being a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Georgia does not meet internationally established standards in terms of juvenile justice. As Professor Carolyn Hamilton states in a recent report for UNICEF, “Georgia does not have juvenile courts or juvenile judges, [...] there is no specific juvenile criminal procedure for children who appear before the court and children are tried in adult courts under the same procedure and conditions as apply to adult offenders.”
The Georgian juvenile justice system does not incorporate the principle of ultimum remedium, which says that criminal penalties should only be applied as a last resort. Far from that, the Georgian justice system provides for rigid custodial penalties and does not make use of alternative non-custodial penalties such as educational and medical treatment. These non-custodial measures are recommended by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. For children who have broken the law, the Convention says that “dispositions, such as care, guidance and supervision orders; counselling; probation; foster care; education and vocational training programmes and other alternatives to institutional care shall be available to ensure that children are dealt with in a manner appropriate to their well-being and proportionate both to their circumstances and the offence”.
There is little awareness in the judiciary as well as among the police about the special treatment that young people should receive. As Hamilton emphasises, the police are not trained to interview or work with young people and the conditions in police isolators where children spend up to 48 hours are poor. Furthermore, although the government has recently reduced the period of time for pre-trial detention, detention is still not used as the last resort only and for the shortest time possible as required by the CRC. The judges do not seem to be implementing non-custodial penalties either. As the Zerekidze case shows, even for injuring someone, a juvenile can receive the maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment (such was the original verdict, changed in March 2007).
Obviously, however, juvenile prisoners are likely to become criminals or to have distorted lives as a consequence of their prison experience.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed its deep concerns in 2003 about juvenile justice in Georgia and urged the Georgian government to fully implement the standards set out in the CRC. Also, it insisted that Georgia must adhere to the UN Standard Rules for the administration of Juvenile Justice (Beijing rules) and develop measures of recovery and social integration of children. Crucial among these are community service projects and half-way homes, which deal with juvenile offenders in a much more effective way than prisons. Nevertheless, since 2003 little has changed in Georgian juvenile system. It is obvious that Georgia needs substantial reforms in this respect. Training of specialists within the criminal justice system is crucial. However, even more important is the understanding that locking up young people is not an effective solution for fighting youth crime. Imprisonment does not deter and it can turn a young person into a real criminal. A decrease in the oppressiveness (and increase in sensibility) of the youth justice system is a necessary step in Georgia’s integration with Europe.
References:
Hamilton, C. (2007) Analysis of the Juvenile Justice System in Georgia. Tbilisi: UNICEF Georgia. Retrieved May 5, 2007 from http://www.unicef.org/georgia/Juvenile_justice_assessment.pdf.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). Retrieved May 5,2007 from http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/pdf/crc.pdf
Rimple, P. (2006, September 22) Harsh Sentence for Juvenile Offender Raises Questions about Georgia’s Justice System. Eurasia Insight. Retrieved May 6, 2007 from http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav092206.shtml
Dzneladze, M. (2007, March 23) Giorgi Zerekidze: Seven Years is a Long Long Time. Georgia Today. Issue 349. Retrieved May 10, 2007 from
http://www.georgiatoday.ge/article_details.php?id=2540
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