‘A very heavy burden’: Georgia’s protesters facing dramatically increased fines for blocking roads

When Giorgi Makharadze attended his trial after being accused of blocking the road while protesting on the evening of 8 January, he knew he would likely be fined. However, as the proceedings unfolded and he observed the judge’s reactions, noting that they seemed to be considering all the arguments, he began to feel it might be possible to prove his case.

‘But then the judge went out to deliberate, came back, and said I should be fined ₾5,000 ($1,800)’, Makharadze tells OC Media.

That same evening, he went straight back to Rustaveli Avenue to continue protesting against the government’s recent actions, including the halting of Georgia’s EU membership bid.

Makharadze is far from the only protester to be handed a high fine for allegedly blocking the road as part of the ongoing demonstrations.

In Daitove, the largest social media group dedicated to the protests, dozens of Georgians write daily about being summoned to court, where they are informed that administrative violation reports have been filed against them on the basis they were blocking the road. Many claim the evidence presented against them is not accurate, and also complain that their court dates are originally scheduled without their knowledge, leading to an extended administrative process.

Many also view the increased fines as the latest method by the Georgian Dream government to try and disperse the ongoing protests.

‘A very heavy burden’

On 29 December, disputed President Mikheil Kavelashvili signed an amendment to the Georgian Administrative Offences Code, which raised the previous administrative fine of ₾500 ($180) to ₾5,000 ($1,800). The amended legislation also provides for administrative detention of up to 15 days.

One couple affected by the increased penalties are Giorgi Kldiashvili, who was fined ₾5,000 for ‘artificially blocking the road’, and his wife Nini Gogsadze, who is facing the same charges, but has yet to go to court.

Kldiashvili’s trial, where he was accused of blocking the road in four separate incidents, was held at the Tbilisi City Court on 6 February. Though Kldiashvili and his representatives argued that he was not identifiable in the video materials presented by the Interior Ministry, the judge decided to consolidate all four cases and impose the ₾5,000 fine.

Despite the high cost, Kldiashvili later wrote on Facebook that he believes the fine ‘is nothing compared to the situation where [Batumlebi and Netgazeti founder] Mzia Amaghlobeli and other political prisoners are still in prison’.

Meanwhile, his wife Nini Gogsadze is still waiting to hear what the court will decide, and if she too will be fined.

Gogsadze says that despite having three children, if given the choice, she would prefer to be handed the 15-day administrative detention rather than the fine.

‘The most difficult part is knowing where your fine payment is going! It’s used to reward the employees of the Special Tasks Department who are out there to intimidate, oppress, and punish us’, Gogsadze tells OC Media.

According to Veriko Jgerenaia, a lawyer with the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), the increased fine places a ‘very heavy burden’ on those charged.

Currently, the increased fine equates to nearly three months of the average salary in Georgia.

‘Considering that we see nearly 100 cases being brought to court daily by law enforcement based on this article, it’s possible that an individual might be summoned to court multiple times over the course of several days for road-blocking violations’, Jgerenaia tells OC Media, arguing that the increased fines are a part of the government’s continued repressive tactics to intimidate protesters.

‘Every trial followed the same pattern’

In the majority of cases, video footage from the protests has been included in the case files as evidence that the accused was blocking the road. Protesters, however, state that the footage often only shows them demonstrating on already closed roads.

‘I remember that day when people were talking to the police. I was standing at the back, and they told the police they were going to move to the road. The police responded, as usual, saying “no, don’t block it”. At some point, police simply opened their cordon, they started turning cars back, and the people moved forward. After that, I joined them too’, Makharadze says.

When he went to retrieve the case materials, he was handed surveillance camera footage which he says confirms his account of the events.

‘One is a close-up shot where I’m standing with people on the road, which is already blocked. The other is a shot taken from above the parliament, where it’s clear that at some point, the police close off the road, turn the cars around, and people walk onto the road. In that footage, I’m not visible’, he says.

Diana Nersesova is another protester who does not dispute whether she was present at the demonstration after being notified by the Interior Ministry that she was being charged with blocking Rustaveli Avenue on 10 December.

According to her, she heard the announcement to move onto the road while she was standing on the sidewalk with her friends, and it wasn’t until a few minutes later, after the crowd had already moved onto the roadway, that she joined them.

When she received the video footage from the court included as part of the case materials, she noted that the footage was not from official security cameras.

‘I remember two people at the protest, a guy and a girl, holding a huge camera, which is why it stuck in my memory. They were standing right in front of me and filming. Someone, acting like a journalist, came to the protest, filmed, and then handed over the footage [to the Interior Ministry]’, Nersesova says.

According to Ana Trapaidze, who faces a ₾500 fine for allegedly blocking Rustaveli Avenue on 29 December, the day of Kavelashvili’s presidential inauguration, every trial she has attended has ‘followed the same pattern’.

‘There’s always a representative from the Ministry of Internal Affairs who says that just being present at a protest where the road is blocked counts as participation in the road blockage. That’s the explanation the Ministry gives, and the judge doesn’t challenge it, even though, in every case, we didn’t block the road ourselves; we simply stood on the already blocked road’, she says.

In her case, Trapaidze says she was at Orbeliani Square on 29 December where then-President Salome Zourabichvili addressed the crowd and announced her decision to leave the presidential palace, at which point those gathered headed towards Rustaveli Avenue.

‘Honestly, I didn’t even realise this could be an issue because Orbeliani Square was completely filled with people — on the square, on the sidewalks, and in the park’, Trapaidze says.

‘By the time we arrived [at Rustaveli Avenue], the road was already blocked, and there was a large crowd, so it wasn’t even possible to talk about standing on the sidewalk. I just found a spot and stood there, in front of the museum’.

For Dodo Lazarishvili, who is accused of blocking Rustaveli Avenue on 8 January, the video footage attached to her case did not even accurately show her.

‘When the video played and they asked me to identify myself, I was confused. I wasn’t in the footage. They also showed a second photo, zoomed in like a portrait, but it was unclear whether I was standing on the sidewalk or the roadway’, Lazarishvili tells OC Media.

The Interior Ministry also presented a witness, a patrol officer, whom Lazarishvili’s lawyer questioned about how he could have identified her at the scene.

Lazarishvili remembers the officer stating that he had not ‘specifically seen’ her, but that people had been moving from the area by the Christmas tree towards Rustaveli Avenue.

‘It felt like a circus, not a court’, Lazarishvili says.

‘Maybe I’m more active than others’

There are no clear indications as to why the Interior Ministry has selected certain individuals to charge, nor why such protesters were only charged for certain days, especially considering that many have participated in the protests on an almost daily basis.

Akaki Veltauri, who was accused of blocking the road on 11, 27, and 29 December, as well as on 6 January, believes such active involvement is the reason he was given so many charges, suggesting that police may have remembered his face more than others from the protests.

‘I’ve been going [to Rustaveli Avenue] almost every day for over two months. Maybe there were three days I couldn’t make it’, Veltauri tells OC Media.

‘There are 10-15 people around me who go together, some of them even went to court [to support me], and only I have this problem. I often communicate with the police when they tell people they’ll fine them, and I tell them they don’t have the right to fine  anyone and it’s up to the court to decide’, he says.

Makharadze has also raised questions about why he was targeted, noting that the video evidence in his case also included his friends, but only one of them has been summoned to the court so far.

‘I can only speculate, but maybe I’m more active than others, or perhaps I caught someone’s eye, or I showed up in a lot of places and then they found me on surveillance cameras’, he says.

According to Jgerenaia, because the new legislation carries a sentence of up to 15 days of administrative detention, the burden of proof for such cases should be as heavy on the administrative body as would apply in criminal cases, noting that this has been established by the European Court of Human Rights’ practices.

However, she says the Georgian courts often ignore this burden of proof when reviewing these cases.

‘In court, sometimes only the testimony of a few police officers and a 10-second video are enough to declare someone’s actions as a violation, just because they’re standing with other people on the road’, she says.

It is also unclear how the court decides to aggravate cases. According to Jgerenaia, it is up to the judges’ personal decision and not based on any established standard.

Despite the fact that the Ministry of Internal Affairs accused Veltauri of the same administrative violation in all four cases, the judge refused to consolidate the cases. According to Veltauri, representatives from the Interior Ministry claimed Veltauri was trying to delay the proceedings by requesting to consolidate the cases.

‘They blamed me as if I wanted to delay the proceedings, but isn’t it more convenient to resolve all four cases in one day, rather than extending the process for a month and a half?’, Veltauri says.

‘There simply isn’t enough time to conduct each session separately’

Many of those attending court over allegedly blocking the road have encountered similar delays in their cases and court processes.

Nersesova only found out she was being charged with blocking Rustaveli Avenue on 10 December via a phone call 20 days after the fact.

‘I didn’t understand what [the phone call] was about at first. I thought maybe someone had sent something for me, and when the conversation started, I thought they were going to tell me to open the door to receive a bouquet. Then my second thought was that maybe someone was playing a joke on me’, Nersesova tells OC Media.

Instead, Nersesova had received a call from a judge’s assistant, who told her that her trial had been rescheduled for 23 January. She faces only a ₾500 ($180) fine as the alleged incident occurred prior to the change in legislation.

Her trial has since been again postponed to 20 February.

Similarly, though the administrative violation report was entered into court records on 13 January and her trial scheduled for the same day, Trapaidze says she only learned about her case on 19 January, when she received a call informing her that since they hadn’t been able to contact her earlier, the hearing would instead take place on 27 January. That day, the process was limited to setting motions, and the next hearing was set for 10 February.

In Makharadze’s case, he only found out during the hearing he attended on 21 January that the original date had been set for 17 January, but had been postponed due to his absence. He says he was never notified that the trial had been scheduled in the first place.

Like the others, Dodo Lazarishvili was informed during the court’s initial call that her hearing had been postponed once already due to their inability to reach her. Lazarishvili explained that though she was abroad at the time, she had data roaming enabled, and no calls from any unknown number were received on her mobile phone.

Lazarishvili thinks that the repeated reschedulings might be occurring due to an overload on the court system.

‘People are often called one hour or even half an hour in advance, being told that their court session is about to start, and they rush to make it in time, all while attempting to gather videos. This is done intentionally’, Lazarishvili tells OC Media.

‘When I attended my trial, the same situation occurred in every courtroom. People were standing outside, waiting for their own hearings, creating long lines as numerous cases were scheduled throughout the day. My case was consolidated with others, and I ended up having my trial alongside two strangers. This is the typical procedure unless you object, as there simply isn’t enough time to conduct each session separately’, she says.

Saba Brachveli, a lawyer at the Open Society Foundation, points out that though the fines have been a more cost-effective way for the Interior Ministry to exert pressure on protestors, the issuance of such a large number of fines has caused an overload in the courts. As a result, the Georgian Dream government changed the legislation once again. While previously the court had to decide whether a citizen should be considered an administrative offender, following the most recent legislative changes, police can now issue fines on the spot, which citizens can appeal first at the Interior Ministry and then in court.

‘In the short term, this will be easier for them [Georgian Dream]. They won’t have to go to court, answer questions, and in short, fewer police officers will be tied up. But ultimately, when we appeal this, they will have to come to court, won’t they? In the end, it will be worse if they issue more fines now, as more police officers will have to go to court. And this is in a court that, today, cannot even tell people the dates of the next hearings because it is so overloaded’, Brachveli tells OC Media.

He considers the fines imposed on demonstrators to be a continuation of the repressions that began with physical retaliation against protestors, stating that they have now just simply changed form.

‘If in December they used physical violence against people, and we remember the insults, etc., now there are fines. They are checking if this is the point of pressure after which people won't go out on the streets anymore and won’t block the roads’, Brachveli says.

‘The crisis has united us’

The exact number of individuals who have been issued administrative violation reports for allegedly blocking the road during the ongoing protests remains unknown. The Interior Ministry did not respond to OC Media’s request for information, however various sources suggest the number could reach several hundred.

Jgerenaia says GYLA has received around 90 such cases that have made it to court and 185 people had reached out for help as of 31 January. However, though statistics are being gathered by the Legal Aid Network, which provides free legal assistance to protesters, such numbers don’t offer a complete picture as some people are being assisted by private lawyers or are legal professionals themselves.

However, despite the hardships, many of those fined, whether the original ₾500 or the updated  ₾5,000, do not intend to stop speaking out.

‘Their attempt is futile’, Veltauri tells OC Media.

‘If we stop now, they’ll completely overrun us. I have a 12-year-old son, and I want him to live in a civilised world, to grow up in a normal society’, he adds, noting that he continues to participate in the ongoing daily protests on Rustaveli Avenue despite the multiple charges filed against him.

For Trapaidze, while such repressive mechanisms may be effective in a normal situation, what is occurring now is more critical, and protesters are fully aware of this fact.

‘For us, this personal discomfort is nothing compared to the much greater discomfort that is coming for our country. For me personally, and for my friends who are affected by these fines, it won’t scare us. We have hope in each other’s support, knowing that funds for fines will help people, or friends will assist us. We are not alone; the crisis has united us, and we have faith in each other’s solidarity. Therefore, this cannot be an effective method of silencing us’, she says.