Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC) will be representing interests of Zviad Ratiani before European Court of Human Rights. In the mentiond case, the applicant claims the violation of the Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

Application submitted to European Court of Human Rights, states that making video recordigns of the applicant following his administrative detention and disclosure of these recordings, was illegal. Furthermore, recording and disseminating the content of the recordings to the public served to provoke negative attitudes towards Zviad Ratani and to shed him an unfavorable light, and not the interest of informing the public.

Zviad Ratiani was detained on December 23, 2017 in the framework of special police control measure (raid). Police accused him of petty hooliganism and disobedience to the police. In the course of administrative proceedings before Tbilisi City Court, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia submitted the video recordings taken from the police officers' private phones as evidence. Recordings show that the detained Ratiani was intoxicated and verbally abusing police officers. However, according to Ratiani, his agitation was caused by the ill-treatment by the police officers, which preceded the video recordings. The video recordings only reflect fragmented episodes following the detention of Zviad Ratan and fail to establish the preceding circumstances relevant to the case. Furthermore, Georgian legislation does not authorize the police officers to use a private mobile device to make a video recording. Bearing this in mind, EMC petitioned the court to consider the recordings to be inadmissible evidence; however, at its open hearing on 27 December 2017, the court accepted and reviwed the evidence without any consideration. The session was attended by media representatives, although the the video recordings was not visually perceptible to them.

After the Court session, the journalist of the Public Broadcaster applied to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia and requested the transfer of the video recordings. Based on the request, the Ministry of Internal Affairs unlawfully handed over video recordings to the Public Broadcaster without informing Ratiani and asking for his permission. The recording was then broadcasted on the Georgian Public Broadcaster Channel and later posted on the Broadcaster's website. Since then, the video has been publicized in other media outlets and has been seen by tens of thousands of people. As a result, Zviad Ratiani has come under constant public scrutiny and has become the target of numerous degrading, insulting, and aggressive comments in both online and public spaces. The mentioned circumstances negatively affected the health of Zviad Ratiani and disrupted his sense of security in the country. It should be noted that the Ministry of Internal Affairs was fully aware that the transfer of the video recording to the Public Broadcaster would lead to its publication and in turn would discredit Zviad Ratiani. This is confirmed by the statement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs dated December 24, 2017, in which the representative of the Ministry points out that at that stage the Ministry did not consider it necessary to publish the record of obscene remarks.

It should be noted that Personal Data Protection Inspector on February 23, 2018 found that the Ministry of Internal Affairs committed an administrative offence by making illegal video recordings of the applicant and unlawfully disclosing them to the media outlets. As a result, the Ministry was fined with 2000 GEL. However, on June 5, 2019, the Tbilisi City Court overturned the decision and the Ministry of Internal Affairs was relieved of any responsibility. This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeals.

Its notesworthy that EMC also represents Zviad Ratiani in the European Court of Human Rights in connection with the violation of Article 3 of the Convention. In particular, the EMC has already submitted an application to the Strasbourg Court on August 5, 2019, claiming the violation of Article 3 of the Convention on Human Rights due to the alleged inhuman and degrading treatment by the state officials and ineffective investigation of the case.

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