Giorgi Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
For several months Georgian society has been following the trial into the murder of Lasha Makharadze, a resident of Tbilisi, by his peer Giorgi Okropiridze. The suspected murderer tried to escape to South Ossetia, but he was arrested and handed over by the South Ossetian law-enforcement agencies to their Georgian colleagues. By the way, this confirms that there are opportunities for constructive cooperation between the sides in the conflict.
The trial has drawn attention, as the suspect is a representative of a powerful youth criminal group which operates in the capital. It seemed his sentence was inevitable, as the prosecution presented compelling evidence; but the defendant didn’t admit his guilt, and his lawyers demanded consideration of the case by a jury.
In fact, it was the first notable case to be considered by a jury after the adoption of the Law on Juries. Discussions on the issue have been going on for many years. It was lobbied for not only by Saakashvili’s party, the United National Movement, but also non-governmental organizations and other so-called pro-Western forces; even though many Georgian lawyers who knew the local reality well warned that this trendy innovation could lead to negative results in Georgia.
The fact that these warnings were fair was confirmed by the trial of Okropiridze. The jury couldn’t reach a verdict –they neither found the defendant innocent nor sentenced him to prison. The main reason is that the majority of the 12 members of the jury, who were threatened by wild emotions in the court (relatives of both young men were present), didn’t want to express their positions, stating at an assembly which had been lasting for 12 hours that they couldn’t have decided whether Okropiridze was guilty or not. In fact, they avoided taking responsibility, as they didn’t want to have troubles after that.
The judge had to dismiss the jury and initiate a new trial with the participation of a new jury. However, the point is that in a few days the time of remand imprisonment before trial will expire for Giorgi Okropiridze, and he will leave prison anyway. The relatives of the murdered Lasha Makharadze threaten to lynch Okropiridze; and the clash could shift to the Tbilisi streets.
Georgian politicians try to explain the situation by the fact that Georgia is a small country, a small society where everybody knows everybody, everybody is someone’s relative, friend, neighbor, and so on. For example, the head of the Parliamentary Committee for Juridical Issues, Vakhtang Khmaladze, explained it in such a way. According to him, “Georgian society is too small for the institution of a jury.”
However, it seems this explanation is not exactly truthful: juries exist in many small countries and operate there successfully. The main problem is that Georgian society couldn’t raise the instinct of civil responsibility in a person – this responsibility is far beyond responsibility for family, relatives, friends, neighbors and acquaintances. The jury didn’t find the murderer of Lasha Makharadze innocent, but they didn’t sentence him to prison either, i.e. they simply avoided facing problems, making no comments.
As a result, politicians and experts in Georgian Criminal Law are talking about eliminating the law and returning to the old system, where a verdict is made by a professional judge who is ready to take on responsibility.
This was the failed result of one of the prestigious reforms by the team of young reformers of Mikheil Saakashvili, who didn’t want to listen to warnings about the impossibility of thoughtlessly importing to Georgia institutions which have been developing in the West for centuries.
