Human rights defenders in Georgia are very concerned over the pending amendment to the Law on Police. If passed into the law, the amendment will authorize an ordinary policeman to stop any person at any time in the street and conduct an “examination on the surface of one’s cloths” based solely on the policeman’s “reasonable doubt” that a citizen might have committed a crime. Moreover, the amendment further eliminates the need for obtaining a prior authorization to conduct a comprehensive search upon an individual and lowers a legal threshold triggering the right for such a search.
Human Rights defenders are particularly alarmed that this amendment comes as a next step and a confirmation of Georgian government’s policy of continuously expanding powers of the executive (especially of law enforcement authorities), at the expense of restricting fundamental human rights and freedoms of the citizens, against the background of a widespread impunity of law enforcement officers for human rights abuses and a long-standing problem of executive control over the judiciary in Georgia.
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We are particularly concerned that the pending amendment comes as a next step in continuous expansion of police rights in Georgia; last year police received the right to use non-lethal weapons, such as rubber and plastic bullets, pepper gas, etc. While no police or other authority, who used such weapons against peaceful demonstrators in November 2007 and Spring-Summer 2009 has been brought before the court. The proposed amendments were swiftly passed into law, hardly providing the possibility for opening a public discourse on this matter.
Furthermore, the same day the Parliament amended the Law on Assembly and Manifestation which disproportionately limited the right to assembly and manifestation as well as freedom of expression and created several loopholes for arbitrary application of the law. The same day the parliament further amended the Administrative Code of Georgia. The amendments made violation of the new Law on Assembly and Manifestation punishable, inter alia, by up to 90 days of administrative detention.
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Date: 2010-11-11 09:44 am (UTC)Human rights defenders in Georgia are very concerned over the pending amendment to the Law on Police. If passed into the law, the amendment will authorize an ordinary policeman to stop any person at any time in the street and conduct an “examination on the surface of one’s cloths” based solely on the policeman’s “reasonable doubt” that a citizen might have committed a crime. Moreover, the amendment further eliminates the need for obtaining a prior authorization to conduct a comprehensive search upon an individual and lowers a legal threshold triggering the right for such a search.
Human Rights defenders are particularly alarmed that this amendment comes as a next step and a confirmation of Georgian government’s policy of continuously expanding powers of the executive (especially of law enforcement authorities), at the expense of restricting fundamental human rights and freedoms of the citizens, against the background of a widespread impunity of law enforcement officers for human rights abuses and a long-standing problem of executive control over the judiciary in Georgia.
[...]
We are particularly concerned that the pending amendment comes as a next step in continuous expansion of police rights in Georgia; last year police received the right to use non-lethal weapons, such as rubber and plastic bullets, pepper gas, etc. While no police or other authority, who used such weapons against peaceful demonstrators in November 2007 and Spring-Summer 2009 has been brought before the court. The proposed amendments were swiftly passed into law, hardly providing the possibility for opening a public discourse on this matter.
Furthermore, the same day the Parliament amended the Law on Assembly and Manifestation which disproportionately limited the right to assembly and manifestation as well as freedom of expression and created several loopholes for arbitrary application of the law. The same day the parliament further amended the Administrative Code of Georgia. The amendments made violation of the new Law on Assembly and Manifestation punishable, inter alia, by up to 90 days of administrative detention.
http://www.humanrights.ge/index.php?a=main&pid=12336&lang=eng
Все-таки реформы не должны были бы отменять права человека.