Georgian human rights activist Elene Tevdoradze: “It’s time to pardon”.

After the New Year, 90 prisoners pardoned by the Georgian president left jail. But everything, as they say, is comparative. Up until the 2003 Rose Revolution there were 12,000 prisoners and President Shevardnadze annually freed one between one and two thousand of them. Now there are around 25,000 prisoners and no more than 200 are pardoned every year.

President Saakashvili has stated more than once that he intends to carry out an uncompromising battle against crime, as “the criminal world sees any indulgence as an expression of weakness, which only leads to an increase in crime.”

It is without doubt true that the level of crime (in particular burglary, robbery and car-theft) has fallen significantly in Georgia. However organizations that deal with amnesties and pardons are experiencing more and more difficulties

 

“A principled position against criminals” traditionally has a political component in Georgia. After all we are speaking about the most passionate part of society – members of family, relatives and friends of the prisoners (and these are hundreds of thousands of people) have always come to rallies and protests where they called for the change of government during revolutions. And during the last 20 years there have been 3 of them, al though the last, in November 2007, wasn’t successful so it is called “a coup attempt”.

 

VK talked to the head of the presidential commission on pardons, human rights advocate Elene Tevdoradze, about the recent act of pardon.

 

-What crimes were considered by the Commission at the end of last year?

 

-Mainly murders, repeat offenses, drug dealing (in Georgia this crime is punished by life imprisonment - VK), organized crime and other serious crimes. So the Commission had to work hard to recommend someone. From 90 candidates for amnesty we choose 20. Despite over a 1,000 applications to the president in the last three months. The rest didn’t meet the requirements and norms. We are talking here about people with bad references from the heads of prison facilities, or people you have already been pardoned by committed another crime.

The constitution forbids the president from forbidding repeat offenders and those who have not served their minimum sentence, as well as those people whose cases are still being heard, and so on. So we chose 90 cases to examine. Among the 20 that we recommended to the president were one woman who worked as a railway accountant and a minor. The rest were doing time for theft, drug use, and so on. Deserters, not from the war with Russia, but beforehand, were also pardoned.

 

-Did you examine the cases of anyone whose arrest was of political significance in society?

 

-There was no political subtext in any of the crimes we considered. These are ordinary criminals. It’s really tough to judge who had drugs planted on them and who really had them. Moreover some of the prisoners you have in mind didn’t ask for a pardon. And if there is no application there can be no pardon. I should remind you of the case of the journalist Shalva Ramishvili, who was jailed for blackmail. He didn’t ask for a pardon and served his time “from the beginning to the end”.

 

-How do you explain the fact that the Commission recommended 20 people for release to the president and 90 people left jail?

 

-The rest were pardoned from the list of the Georgian Orthodox patriarch. We didn’t consider their cases, and have nothing to do with them.

 

Interview by Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively for VK.