The Social Justice Center comments on jailing of Nika Melia. Following the arrests of Irakli Okruashvili and Zurab Girchi Japaridze, his detention clearly indicates that Georgian Dream has decided to fully implement repressive mechanisms to persecute opposition parties.

At the Tbilisi City Court today, a trial was held for Nika Melia—one of the leaders of the Coalition for Change. Judge Irakli Shvangiradze allowed the prosecution's motion and imposed detention as a preventive measure against Melia.

The ruling was preceded by the administrative detention of Nika Melia. Yesterday, on May 29, he was detained under Article 173 of the Administrative Offenses Code, disobedience to or insulting a police officer. This clearly demonstrates that the detention by the patrol police was entirely unwarranted, and that it was a previously planned and coordinated special operation. Proven by the factual circumstances, Nika Melia was detained under administrative charges in order to guarantee his criminal arrest today. [1]

The hearing in Nika Melia’s case was supposed to take place yesterday, May 29, but it was postponed after the nonappearance of the prosecutors. There is an opinion, that the prosecution requested to postpone the hearing in order to find a stronger basis for demanding pretrial detention. The one month deadline for Nika Melia to pay the 50 000 GEL bail expired at midnight on May 29. Therefore, if the hearing were to take place yesterday, the prosecutors would not have been able to request jailing on the grounds of failure to pay bail. Although, in order not to postpone restriction of Melia’s freedom even for the few days, he was administratively detained yesterday and taken to the court hearing directly from the temporary detention facility.

After leaving the detention facility, Nika Melia’s lawyers pointed to a number of procedural violations. [2] There is a justified suspicion that he was arrested as a result of advance planning and ambush. The detainers were likely aware that he was heading to a television program, which enabled them to mobilize police officers and the same minibus that was actively used during the dispersal of the November-December protests. Clearly, arresting a single individual did not in fact require the mobilization of dozens of law enforcers and a minibus. According to the lawyers, Nika Melia had no direct communication with the officers, and the grounds for arrest were not explained to him. They detained him immediately after confirming his identity. This obviously indicates that the law enforcement officers committed a crime under Article 147 of the Criminal Code (intentional unlawful detention or arrest). The fact that the police were pre-mobilized for his arrest and that he was detained without any communication right after identification, undoubtedly confirms that his detention was not a response to legal violation by the law enforcers, but it was the sole aim of the operation.

It is particularly concerning, that during the administrative detention, law enforcement officers allegedly overstepped their legal authority more than once. According to Nika Melia, they attempted to forcibly unlock his mobile phone while in the minibus. The police did not allow him to contact his lawyer at the time of arrest. Nika Melia spoke in detail about the circumstances of his arrest during the court hearing, but the judge did not address the groundlessness of the arrest or the criminal actions of the law enforcement officers.

We shall note that it was the same judge, Irakli Shvangiradze, who made the decision to impose pretrial detention on Zurab Girchi Japaridze a week earlier. Irakli Shvangiradze was appointed as a judge in December of last year, during the most critical phase of the continuous protests, and within just a few months, he has already carried out several repressive rulings. It is also worth mentioning that Judge Shvangiradze’s name appears in cases of the prisoners of conscience. He ordered the pretrial detention of eleven demonstrators arrested on charges of group violence at the pro-European rallies.

At both, Nika Melia’s and Zurab Girchi Japaridze’s court hearings the prosecution was represented by Prosecutor Natia Tatiashvili. She is one of the prosecutors who was awarded today by the Prosecutor General with a certificate of gratitude and the title of Honored Employee for exemplary and diligent performance of duties. Among the awarded prosecutors were also others involved in the cases of prisoners of conscience.

The Prosecution is charging Nika Melia with Article 349 of the Criminal Code (failure to comply with a lawful request of the Temporary Investigative Commission of the Parliament of Georgia). This article orders penalty of either a fine or imprisonment for up to one year. Civil society organizations and lawyers have repeatedly tried to explain that failure to appear before a temporary investigative commission does not at all constitute a criminal offense. [5] Article 349 of the Criminal Code, the basis of investigations against Japaridze and other opposition politicians, has significant issues with foreseeability and is subsequently unconstitutional. The elements of the crime defined under this article are identical to those outlined in Article 173³ of the Administrative Offenses Code. In both cases, the contents are defined as failure to comply with a lawful request of a commission. The article titles and interests protected from offence/crime are also identical. Both aim to protect the order of governance. Therefore, there is not a single objective criterion which would distinguish an administrative offense from a criminal one. In case of overlapping content from the two, the enforcement of criminal measures contradicts fundamental human rights and basic procedural requirements.

Despite the absence of the criminal liability grounds and the unforeseeability of the legal norm, arrest of Nika Melia was not unexpected, since the same decision had already been made in the cases of another Coalition for Change leader, Zurab Girchi Japaridze, and prior to that, former Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili. Considering this repressive trend, it is not unlikely that, in the future, the same mechanism can be used against all opposition politicians who refuse to pay bail.

Today’s decision by Irakli Shvangiradze once again revealed that Georgian Dream is using legal mechanisms and public institutions to intimidate and persecute the opposition and, generally, any individual with critical opinions. The politically motivated use of criminal justice mechanisms disregards fundamental rights and carries the signs of consolidated authoritarianism.

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