It is worthy to mention that it was not possible yet for the Public Defender's Office to affirm itself in the Southern Caucasus countries. Despite the fact that there already exists the Ombudsman's office in Tbilisi for three years now, this institution has the zero effectiveness for the country. This is one more proof of the fact that very often the governmental structures consider the democratic laws and principles as the facade, in other words for them important is the form of the western democratic values and not their enforcement. That explains the reason why they do not except the proper candidates that are lobbied by the leading NGOs in the country for the Ombudsman's position. The following fact speaks for itself why this position is extremely politicised: David Salaridze, a very "outstanding personality" was elected for the position of the first Ombudsman of Georgia. He served in law enforcement agencies during the Soviet period and he achieved the title of general of militia, in the post-soviet period first he was the Deputy Minister of Interior Affairs, and later head of Tax Office of Georgia. Despite the fact that he could not affirm himself in the field of right protection, he was elected as an Ombudsman for five years term. After a year and half he announced about going into the politics, retired, became a member of one of the parties and since 1999 he is a Member of Parliament. After that in 2000 Miss Nana Devdariani, representative of the opposition party was elected on this position. Her profession is journalism and she was deputy chairman of the social party. From the first approach it was unexpected that parliamentary majority voted for her, but if we consider the fact that the alternative candidates for that position were professional right protectors (NGO representatives) it becomes easy to understand why the opposing parties found consensus not to give this "dangerous" position to the NGO representative. The following period showed that leading party did not do the wrong choice, - Ombudsman does not create any problems for the government, public hears her very rarely, and time-by-time her image as of the opposition is kind of disappearing. Naturally, opposing politician and right protector are two different things, although both have one common -- opposition.
Story about the "municipal lawyer (city lawyers) project could serve as a good example of the above mentioned. NGO Young lawyers Association implemented the project; their representatives were place sin the police stations all 24 hours and were providing free legal aid in the first 24 hours of the detention. The heads of the city representatives of the Ministry of Interior Affairs agreed on this type of collaboration with an NGO at the beginning (probably relying on the approach that they could use this as a facade for showing the transparency of their institution), but very soon there were conflicts with lawyers, who were the real obstacle for the police to "work" on the detained people and in a month and half they just expelled the lawyers and never allowed them there again.
1) Police arrested 23 years old Temur Tsartsidze in Rustavi in April 2000. From the injury that he received in the police department his central nervous system got destructed. Right now his right leg is totally paralysed, and partially his right hand too.
2) At the beginning of the current year, within the Ministry of Justice there was created the Independent Council of Public Overseeing of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia, which is composed of the NGO representatives. Part of its members (15 people) has the free access to the prisons for monitoring purposes. This of course is the step forward in the relationship of government and NGO representatives. But we also have to mention that the members of Counsel are generally ignored while making the important decisions. This was the case when the juvenile prisoners were moved to #5 isolator, where there conditions became significantly worse.
3) State does not take enough measures to protect the freedom of belief. The result of this policy is that religious intolerance has been increased during these recent two years in our society. Separate groups very obviously assault representatives of untraditional religious (Jehovah Witnesses, Krishnan, Baptists, etc.); physically offend them and require their prohibition form the State. They have even achieved success in some cases and forced the Supreme Court abolish registration of the Jehovah's entity. Orthodox Church of Georgia (Patriarch 's office of Georgia) does not condole the parallel religious extremists, although announcements made by some of its representatives provoke the religious extremism development. Our organization initiated the start of the dialogue between the Patriarch's office of Georgia and human rights advocacy organizations, which concluded with the signing the joint declaration. Declaration from one point of view dislikes the facts of religious extremism and fanatics, and from another point of view expresses support for doing agreement between the state and Patriarchat of Georgia that will not infringe the interests of other religious representatives.