Lawyer: The Court of Appeals upheld the same reasoning as the first instance in Zurab Japaridze’s case - We will appeal to the Supreme Court and then to the European Court of Human Rights
The Court of Appeals did not satisfy the complaint filed by Zurab Girchi Japaridze, one of the leaders of the “Coalition for Change,” regarding the case of his failure to appear before the so-called investigative commission.
As Japaridze’s lawyer, Irakli Chomakhidze, told Interpress News, the Court of Appeals upheld exactly the same reasoning as the first instance court.
According to the lawyer, they plan to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court and subsequently to the European Court of Human Rights.
“The Court of Appeals found that the first instance court’s decision was justified regarding both the crime and the punishment. We were appealing both aspects. First, that no crime existed, as the commission’s composition was illegitimate, lacking opposition representatives—by which I mean more than half of the committee—and it violated procedure during its establishment, making any decision it made illegitimate and unconstitutional.
The second issue was that Zurab Japaridze’s right to defense was restricted, as the commission’s chairperson was not summoned, and their signature on the summons was not verified.
The third issue was that Zurab considers the parliament illegitimate and did not attend.
As for the punishment itself, this was a less serious offense with a qualification of up to one year, with alternatives including a fine or non-custodial punishment. However, the court imposed the harshest penalty—7 months of imprisonment—which is unprecedented in practice. Given that we undeniably clarified the case and were not concerned with any witnesses, judicial practice should have applied a non-custodial penalty. Therefore, we considered this to be political persecution and appealed based on these arguments. However, the Court of Appeals upheld exactly the same reasoning as the first instance.
We believe this is incorrect and will appeal to the Supreme Court, and then we will file with the European Court of Human Rights for violations of Article 6 of the Convention,” Zurab Girchi Japaridze’s lawyer told Interpress News.
