Almost every law passed by Parliament throughout 2025 is aimed at repression – it's very difficult to legally assess these repressions because everything goes beyond the bounds of law! – this is the assessment made by IDFI lawyer Giorgi Davituri regarding the laws passed by Parliament.
As Davituri stated on PalitraNews’s program Dgis Newsroom, even Belarus does not have a law similar to the legislative package added during the second reading related to financial crimes. According to him, even family members are prohibited from helping a person who was imprisoned for a financial crime and has served their sentence.
“As far as I know, Belarus has a law related to financial crimes that allows the state to seize money and prevent such a person from leaving the country. But what has been added to this bill – a ban on assisting such people – I haven’t seen anything like it, not even in Belarus.
In this case, there may be internal disagreements within Bidzina Ivanishvili’s circle about who took how much money, there may be confusion, but the substance of the changes is such that the fundamental principles of law are ignored.
A person who has served their sentence is released from prison, yet helping this person is prohibited. Even if a family member helps them, that too can be declared a crime. This person cannot have income exceeding 500 GEL, and if someone – for example, a parent – gives more than that, it will be treated as a separate offense.
The content of these amendments rejects and disregards the basic principles of justice,” – said Giorgi Davituri.
According to Davituri, no one should think that the repressive changes made in various laws only affect protesters or those who are politically opposed to Georgian Dream. He says the changes are large-scale and affect the entire society.
“From photo and video material from court hearings, we’ve learned a lot about the ongoing processes. We saw that witnesses couldn’t recognize the accused; they would claim to have arrested certain people, but those individuals weren’t even present at the hearing. There are contradictions in witness testimonies and many other serious issues. It's one thing for a journalist to report this, but when there's visual documentation, it’s another level. In reality, Georgian Dream has prohibited the documentation and rapid delivery of this information to the public.
The government's goal is to distance society from the court processes – so that people do not witness the depth of injustice! Judges haven’t even been left the formal ability to decide for themselves whether to allow the media to film the proceedings. This decision was moved to the High Council of Justice, which confirms that they view the issue through a propagandistic lens, not a legitimate one,” – Davituri said.
Regarding the latest amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses, Davituri noted that knowing financial fines no longer frighten people, the state has decided to physically imprison them.
“On the one hand, the amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses aim to free the Ministry of Internal Affairs from the burden of handling cases and transfer that burden entirely to the courts. The Ministry will be relieved of this workload, but the courts will be overloaded.
A 5,000 GEL fine in Georgia is about 20 times the subsistence minimum. If citizens had at least some chance to gather money and eventually pay these repressive fines — because there are almost no acquittals — the new law now shortens that time: the MIA is removed from the chain, and appealing a decision no longer suspends its enforcement. This means that whatever decision the first-instance court makes immediately goes into effect. It's very difficult to legally evaluate these repressions because, in my view, everything falls outside the bounds of the law. Clearly, it contradicts the right to a fair trial.
As for the material side, the so-called responsibility becomes harsher. This seems to target those people who more frequently stand on Rustaveli Avenue. It means they know that fines won't scare people, so the goal is to physically lock them up in prison.
It’s clear that both the law enforcement and security sectors are deeply involved with significant resources. If you review Parliament’s legislative activity, almost every law and piece of legislation throughout 2025 is aimed at repression.
The main goal of Georgian Dream is to use state resources as maximally and effectively as possible to suppress public resistance in order to fulfill its party objectives. This is yet another threat to the people. We've seen illegal detentions, beatings, and torture of detainees many times, but with these changes, the message is: ‘You’re not formally subject to detention, and prison doesn’t fit your case, but since a monetary penalty doesn’t work on you, now I’ll detain you physically,’” – concluded Giorgi Davituri.
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