EU praises achievements by Georgian Government in justice sector

The European Union welcomes the achievements by Georgian Government in justice sector, however the EU notes that several targets were not met, - it is said in a statement presented by EU Ambassador to Georgia Carl Hartzell at a news conference on January 17.

“The EU welcomes the following achievements by the Government in 2017: Improving access to legal aid for citizens through a 10% increased funding and a 22% increase in number of beneficiaries of the state legal aid service;

Developing a more child friendly justice system through a high (64%) diversion rate for first time offenders and a 24% decrease in pre-trial detention rates of juveniles;

Aligning closer to European Human Rights Standards with 13.4% reduction of pre-trial detention rates for adults (exceptionally excluding domestic violence cases) and establishing a prosecution council and advisory body at the prosecutors' office;

Improving conditions in prisons by conducting risk and needs assessments across all prisons, sustaining the amount of inmates (893) participating in vocational education programmes, lowering prison mortality and disease transmission rates, as well as enhanced reviews and use of the pre-release mechanism for prisoners,” says the statement.

However the EU notes that several targets were not met. In particular, no new prison facility was built for juveniles and young offenders, the independent mechanism to investigate wrongdoings of law enforcement officials was not established, and there were not enough land plots registered in a systematic way in pilot regions, although sporadic registrations progressed rapidly.

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