It is noteworthy that antagonistic relations established between the law-enforcement agencies and the society under the Soviet Period still persists. The society tends to see a potential danger in a policeman rather than a representative of the institution protecting their rights and security. The policemen do not stimulate to change the opinion by their conduct. The number of the employees salaries are deliberately high their salaries being low and the representatives of this institution equipped with weapon and the validity of law seek to improve their living conditions at the expense of population. It has become an entrepreneur practice to bring people to the police stations and incriminate them in commission of various offences. There are frequent cases when all this is resulted in extortion (or they threaten to incriminate and institute the criminal proceedings). In this context the degree of the persons' involvement in a crime is not crucial --it is possible by all means "to get" witnesses (in some cases false witnesses in other -- genuine ones), true or false evidences and obtain "confession" by virtue of inquisitors' methods. Then they begin "to bargain" how much the institution of the criminal proceedings is.
While Georgia has ratified numerous international documents on protection of Human Rights inter alia "Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Other Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment", both local and foreign Human Rights protection experts are concerned with the persistence of the facts of arrestees' torture and their ill-treatment.
The failure of the Georgian authorities to set up the legal aid system due to the budgetary constraints negatively affects Human Rights protection in the places of temporary arrest. Furthermore, they prohibited provision of legal aid by NGOs and other Human Rights groups at the initial stage of deprivation of liberty (so called "city lawyers" project).
The fact that these law-enforcement officials are not adequately punished for commission of such offences also encourages systematic infringement of arrestees' rights. Some ardent "law-abiding" citizens defending policemen often refer to extremely low salaries and absolutely insufficient labour conditions of the latter (deplorable material-technical basis, equipment etc.) which entails inefficient and illicit character of their work. Here we note that while the law-enforcement agencies should be paid more attention, the lack of professionalism and other reasons may by no means justify the commission of those actions by them as a result of which grievous violations of Human Rights occur (See Annex 1.).
One of the means for redeeming the situation could be the improvement of legislation in terms of enabling a doctor to visit and examine the arrestee, which should be entered on the records. The analogous proceeding is advisable to be conducted before and after interrogation. This will exclude the criminal law-enforcement officials' impunity and the possibility of the courts to admit the expert evidences where the specialists claim impossibility to establish the exact date of injuries sustained.
According to the Georgian legislation supervision on the execution of punishments falls within the competence of the Prosecutor's Office. Often it becomes a ground for corrupted relations on the one hand between system administration and the Prosecutor's Office and on the other between prisoners and the representatives of the Prosecutor's Office. It is advisable that with regard to the issues of supervision on the execution of punishments the Prosecutor's Office be replaced by independent observers which will be having neither authorisation to institute criminal proceeding nor any official interests with the object of the observation. It is possible this authorisation be vested with the Office of the Public Defender or other Human Rights protection institution.