From November of 2020, the Social Justice Center, with the support of the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), is implementing a project titled: "Supporting the right to protest in Georgia."

The goal of this project is to provide tailored, needs-based and timely support to protect the rights of protesters and social movement leaders who peacefully stand up against injustice, abuse and inequality. Support services will include legal assistance and accompaniment, strategic litigation support, limited emergency assistance, and capacity building on strategies to challenge government abuse, assist victims of violations and ensure physical and digital security.

For the purposes of this project the right to protest is defined broadly and includes core fundamental rights such as the right to personal liberty, privacy, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association etc. as well as structural inequalities (socio-economic rights) that might have been exacerbated by the COVID 19 crisis).

Directions of strategic litigation are as follow:

• The impact of the government’s restrictive measures on human rights, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis;
• The use of harsh and strict policing / punishment mechanisms while neglecting other viable options, which are in the best health interest of the public, such as using social/preventive measures;
• significant challenges of the social and economic policy, which has become even more apparent during the pandemic, leading to particularly high vulnerabilities of socially vulnerable groups

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