Zwei Meldungen auf der Webseite der georgischen Nachrichtenagentur Interpressnews www.ipn.ge verdienen, weiter verbreitet zu werden. Es handelt sich um einen offenen Brief amerikanischer Senatoren an den georgischen Premier Bidsina Iwanischwili und um ein Interview der georgischen Justizministerin Tea Tsulukiani mit France 24. Wir veröffentlichen beide Texte in der englischen Version von ipn.

American Senators Address Bidzina Ivanishvili

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators wrote to Bidzina Ivanishvili late last week to urge the Georgian prime minister to prove to the world that Georgia is not using its courts to exert political retribution on the officials of the former government of President Mikheil Saakashvili”, Foreign Policy reports.
„We are deeply troubled by reports of detentions, investigations, imprisonment and allege persecution of political figures associated with the opposition party in Georgia,“ wrote Sens.Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), James Risch (R-ID), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and John McCain (R-AZ), in a Dec. 6 letter obtained by The Cable. „We write today to express our growing concerns about the possibility that these moves are politically motivated and designed to settle political scores in the aftermath of the recent election. We urge you to ensure that your administration does everything necessary to avoid even the perception of selective justice against member of the previous government.“
In the weeks since the Georgian Dream Party, led by billionaire Ivanishvili, won parliamentary elections, high-level U.S. and European officials have expressed concern that the prosecutions — amounting thus far to 23 officials of the previous government for alleged crimes including corruption and torture — are politically motivated.
Shaheen and Risch traveled to Georgia to observe the elections and praised both sides at the time. But now they are warning that Georgia’s relationship with the world and with the United States in particular depends on the new government continuing down the road of democratic reform and ensuring the rule of law, political pluralism, and a culture of cooperation with the opposition.
The senators directly referenced The Cable’s interview last month with Georgian Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze as evidence that Georgia’s new government is not upholding its promises to let the legal system operate absent political influence.
„We welcome your words ruling out selective justice, but we regret to say that we are deeply concerned by developments this far. Especially troubling were the recent comments from your foreign minister, Ms. Maia Panjikidze, when she declared that former Georgian officials are ‘criminals and guilty,'“ they wrote. „Guilt and innocence should be determined by an impartial court, to do otherwise undermines the rule of law.“
„This year’s parliamentary elections were no doubt divisive; however, the campaign is over,“ they wrote.

Tea Tsulukiani – Saakashvili and his Team Propose that we Stop Investigating Different Cases Including the Girgvliani case in exchange for a constructive Relationship within Cohabitation

Georgia’s Minister of Justice Tea Tsulukiani states in an interview with France 24 that “Saakashvili and his team are quite bold and they even propose officially that we stop investigating different cases including the Girgvliani case in exchange for a constructive relationship within the framework of our cohabitation”.
Minister of Justice says the that Georgian people voted for Georgian Dream first of all because Saakashvili’s government didn’t manage a lot of problems. The Georgian people suffered 9 years from Saakashvili’s government, a terrible feeling of injustice, social injustice, no system for healthcare, no accessible education for children, and no independent and impartial judiciary system. After this we saw what we saw on TV in September 2012 where we saw the footage of ill treatment of prisoners in Georgian prisons, and today we let the new government investigate those cases of ill treatment of prisoners, and also the ill treatment of soldiers, one of the reasons why the former Defense Minister has been arrested is, he allegedly participated in ill treatment of soldiers. As a country, as a new government that strives for NATO, for EU, we know that we will not be able to become a truly western, fully democratic society, if we have people in the army who dare to mistreat our soldiers”, Tsulukiani states. She says that she received as a minister of justice more than 5,600 complaints against former high officials from the Saakashvili government
“When Saakashvili came into power he declared a zero tolerance policy towards crime and we are now in first position in Europe in terms of number of prisoners, the first step is the amnesty act passed by parliament two days ago. We managed to have this balance between amnesty and protection of the public from crime. The second step will be to finish with the overcrowded Georgian prisons. We’ll be changing laws. We have so called Saakashvili’s law about consecutive sentences, where our youngsters and young generation are in prison for petty crimes and they are long term prisoners, so we’ll finish this practice of having long term prisoners for petty crimes. We‘ll also be reforming the plea bargaining system. Saakashvili took from the U.S., it’s a very good system if it is used properly, but Saakashvili’s prosecutors used it to bargain liberty in exchange for money”, she said.
Tsulukiani stated that their absolute priority is the balance between what the the people are asking for. “They want justice to be done and now, not in the spring and fall 2013. but at the same time we need to have evidence in order to prosecute anybody, including high rank former officials, we have for the case of Enukidze and Girgvliani, on which the Strasbourg court declared that the former minister of interior, the former minister of justice, the former minister of prisons and the president himself all acted to prevent justice to be done in that case.
This case was left uninvestigated by Saakashvili’s government. We are investigating this case. it is not excluded that in this case, some of high rank officials are going to be examined, and if we have enough evidence they will be prosecuted, so one can call this high profile political case, it is actually a high rank and high profile political case, what we are trying to show is that nobody can be immune to law and the emphasis should be put on evidence”, she said, adding that they put emphasis on evidence. “Where we don’t have evidence we don’t prosecute”.
When asked by the journalist about whispers that Saakashvili may himself face charges, Tsulukiani responded that “there is no risk if there is no evidence that Saakashvili can be sued. Saakashvili has been elected for a five year term, and this term expires in January 2013, however he managed to have the constitution changed several months ago. In order to finish his term in October 2013 so he is eager to keep power. Today Saakashvili and his team are quite bold and they even propose officially that we stop investigating different cases including the Girgvliani case in exchange for a constructive relationship within the framework of our cohabitation but we can not stop investigating criminal cases which have been left without investigation because of political motives under Saakashvili regime”, she said.
Tsulukiani names two priorities of the new government: “First of all we have to correct those negative results of selective justice Saakashvili established in Georgia for 9 years of his reign, second priority and the most important one is to lead the country towards NATO, toward EU and to make Georgia a truly democratic society. Saakashvili’s reforms were very beautifully presented but the content of Saakashvili’s reforms were anti western and anti democratic”, Tsulukiani said.