On December 17, 1996 the non-governmental organisation "The Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights" and The United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees LO Tbilisi organised a seminar at Metakhi Palace Hotel in Tbilisi. The seminar discussed two topics: a) The problems of abolition of capital punishment in Georgia; b) Relations between the non-governmental organisations and state structures.
Given the particular specialty of the questions addressed, the representatives of three types of institutions were invited to the seminar: 1) Georgian non-governmental for human rights (14 representatives of 10 organizations); 2) the staff members of embassies and international organizations working on the problems of human rights in Georgia; 3) Georgian legislative and executive establishments that are directly linked to the protection of human rights in Georgia. Among participants were:
Mr. Baysa Wak-Woya, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ms. Ommie Kerr, First Secretary, Embassy of the US, and Mr. Michael Hancock, Deputy Ambassador, British Embassy. Ms. Kate Whyte, Programme Director, Eurounion Representation in Georgia, and Mr.Helmut Udo Napiontek, Leutenant Colonel, OSCE Mission to Georgia attended the conference as well. The director International Caucasian-American Office for Human Rights Mr.Leonid Stonov, Ph.D. and the executive director Mr.Igor Klebansky, who visited Tbilisi for two days, made a brief statement at the seminar. Unfortunately, the representatives the Office of the Public Prosecutor, the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, though highly welcomed, did not come.
The seminar adopted an appeal prepared by the public co-ordination centre of the cam-paign for abolition of death penalty. In the appeal, the participants of the con-ference are petitioning Mr. Eduard Shevardnadze, the President of Georgia, to abolish death penalty; the participants welcomed the moratorium on capital punishment declared by the President on December 10, 1996. However, the appeal says, this moratorium is not a sufficient or satisfactory method for resolving the problem of death penalty in Georgia. The appeal proposes creating of the joined state commission inviting state officials, parliamentary deputies as well as jurist and members of the non-governmental organisations for human rights.
The seminar addressed recent attempts by Georgian Parliament to harmonise the Constitution and the Criminal Code of Georgia. The bill on changes and adjustments to the Criminal Code, abolishes capital punishment on four articles of the Criminal Code. However, the bill does not solve the problem, because the capital punishment still remains on the crimes stipulated by 9 articles of the current Criminal Code. We demand that capital punishment be re-defined (by 30-40 years of imprisonment or imprisonment for life), and that the time-limits of appeal for pardon be specified carefully.
The seminar also discussed the grave situation in the cells of prisoners sentenced to death. They are kept in the so called "dungeons", cells that are dug deep into soil. On average, six or eight people are kept in the rooms constructed only for two. The rooms are inadequately lit and poorly air-conditioned. Under such inhumane con-ditions, these people will die by themselves and even the moratorium will not rescue them. It is urgent that 52 prisoners sentenced to death be transferred to a separate outbuilding isolator #1, where they can be treated with more respect.
There exists a real threat that the Parliament will put capital punishment in force again in 5 or 10 years, thereby executing all those who are currently sentenced to death. The moratorium will act until the parlia-ment makes a final decision about this question. It is the most inhumane of the state to keep its citizens awaiting death day after day.
Mr. Bidzina Savaneli, Professor of Law at the Tbilisi State University: Capital punish-ment as an atavism. A person deliberately kills another person; the state sentences the murderer to death. There is no basic differ-ence between these two acts: in both cases, a person and a state act according to blood feud, the only difference is that the first acts illegally, and the second - legally. Hence, capital punishment is nothing but blood feud. Thus, we should revise a legal explanation of punishment - punishment should not be only a form of revenge. If it is only revenge, than any form of punishment is nothing but atavism - a tail, attached to the body of the man, which should be cut down! If the main purpose of punishment is not to revenge, but only to ameliorate a prisoner, the term "blood" should be taken out of use, or changed by more civilized term.
As for the second topic of relations between the non-governmental organisations and state structures, Mr. Baysa Wak-Woya and Mr. Rusetsky gave brief presentations.
Mr.Baysa Wak-Woya, The UN High Commissioner for Refugees: Current judicial thought, influenced by the Marxist theory, considers an individual a primary subject of international law. International law on human rights regulates the relations between a citizen and a state. The state must protect an individual from the abuses of his/her rightst hat the state itself may inflict. If there is no institutional mechanism protecting human rights, non-governmental organisations emerge to compensate the lack of such institutions. The non-governmental organisations for human rights are mandated only to promote the protection of universally acknowledged human rights; these organisations may monitor the authority and prevent the violations via educating both the citizens and the government. International and local non-governmental organisations are not mandated to protect human rights world-wide, however, they can urge national governments to comply to the international laws on human rights.
Several criteria are adopted to identify the NGOs,. Most importantly, the organisation must promote and contribute to the protection of human rights. It must be peaceful and void of political motivation. It is required that the NGOs be non-profit
oriented and they should not exercise racial or ethnic segregation. As for the conflict resolution, the relations among the NGOs, of opposing sides may prove an efficient instrument in confidence building among the parties.
Based on the relm of their activities, there are three categories of the NGOs:
1. promoting civil and political rights (Amnesty International);
2. promoting economic, social and cultural rights (Los Medicos sin Fronteras);
3. "The Third" wave (Green Peace).
The speficities of any given country will define how the NGOs are distributed along this division. Generally, the more authoritarian the regime, the more active the NGOs are. In a truely civil society there a few NGOs working on local issues, since the state itself is engaged in the protection of human rights.
Mr. Alexander Rusetsky, Co-ordinator, Assemble of Helsinki Citizens: The main theme of my speech is the development of the civil sociery in Georgia, its stages and paradigmes. I have difficulties accepting the Western model of building the civil society mechanically since the development of the civil society in post-totalitarian countries differs from the one in the West. Besides, post-Soviet nations face time constraints unfamiliar to the Western nations; they must build a society that took decades to build in the West. Although we can identify some elements of democracy in our statehood, Georgian society is far from being democratic. Therefore, Georgian democracy is insatiable and imaginary. The level of development of the NGOs indicates the degree of democratisation of a nation and guarantees the stability of democratisation.
The discussion was mediated by Ms. Nana Kakabadze of "The Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights" and Mr.Baysa Wak-Woya of the UNHCR. The representatives of Georgian mass media attended the seminar as well.
The Press-Centre
"Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights".