Social Justice Centre (former EMC) assesses the case concerning the citizenship of an elder and a public figure from Pankisi, Jabrail Khangoshvili, and believes that the rejection of the application to retain and receive Georgian citizenship, as well as of the residence permit for Jabrail Khangoshvili, who was born and has permanently lived in Georgia, is arbitrary and, considering the overall context of the case, raises doubts of political motive.

Jabrail Khangoshvili was born and raised in Georgia. His native language is Georgian. He has performed distinguished services for Georgia. He lives in Georgia with his family to this day and conducts public-civil activities, as well as business activities. In order to restore his property rights which were lost as a result of the Russia-Chechnya wars, Khangoshvili was forced to obtain Russian citizenship in 2015. This resulted in the automatic revocation of his Georgian citizenship based on law. However, his requests for retaining and, then, restoring Georgian citizenship were denied by state authorities based on a general and unsubstantiated indication of security interests.

Social Justice Centre reviewed the negative decision and concluded that it is evidently unsubstantiated. Suspicions of the Government’s political interests, in this case, are supported by arbitrary legal obstacles and the chain of negative decisions for the distinguished former citizen of Georgia in the process of restoring his citizenship and obtain the right to legally reside in Georgia, as well as a suspicious property dispute against him concerning the ownership of a share in Telavi Market and an arbitrary communication regarding this issue by state representatives with Jabrail Khangoshvili and his family members.

The case of Jabrail Khangoshvili is a lustration of the State’s malpractice to superficially decide on issues concerning citizenship and severe individuals’ legal bonds with Georgia without any substantiation. This approach infringes the human right to private and family life. As a rule, the agency reviewing the issue of citizenship issues cosmetic negative decisions on granting citizenship with only a formal reference to state/public security interests. The only source of information regarding the proof of security risks attributed to a specific individual is a superficial letter from the State Security Service. This information bears the state secret status and, as a rule, is not subject to a due review by administrative bodies.

In Georgia, the decisions made based on the above-described secret information are not monitored through an actual and specifically designed mechanism. A court reviews secret information, its substantiation and rational link to the decision only if the underlying act is disputed. A party is completely deprived of the opportunity to access secret information, submit countering argumentation and refute the state’s suspicion regarding alleged threats during administrative and judicial proceedings.

The above-mentioned standard of protecting the secrecy of information is actively used by state authorities to cover up their unlawful and unsubstantiated decisions. The case of Jabrail Khangoshvili is another clear example of how an administrative body makes a discretionary power arbitrary and superficially refuses to substantiate its decision through a reference to state secrecy, does not take into account the circumstances of the case and conducts governance activities unlawfully.

For restoring the human rights of Jabrail Khangoshvili, Social Justice Centre considers that the issue of his citizenship should be reviewed again, in a due manner, and relevant administrative bodies and, then, the President make independent and objective decisions.

Furthermore, Social Justice Centre believes that the malpractices in the process of deciding on citizenship in Georgia should be changed and deserves a swift reaction. The creation of effective monitoring mechanisms is crucial to ensure the protection of the state interest of information secrecy along with guaranteeing the protection of rightsholders’ legal interests. This mechanism should also eradicate arbitrariness of state authorities, political motives and influence of high-ranking officials in the decision-making process.

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