From February of 2021, Social Justice Center (formerly EMC) in cooperation with East West Management Institute (EWMI)’s program “Promoting Rule of Law in Georgia” (PROLoG) has commenced a project: “Investigation System Reform Advocacy.”

Independence and effectiveness of the investigation system has been a significant challenge to the criminal justice system in the country. To support the reform, EMC and other organizations constantly note its importance before different stakeholders and in international reports. Several organizations included investigation system reform as a priority of EU Assosication Agenda (2021-20217). By the active work with political parties on this issue, almost all the leading parties included the reform in their election program. Which itself created the opportunity for concrete actions at the political level. Therefore, in the post-election environment, it is imperative to support the notion for reform, and return the case on the political agenda.

To this end, the project aims to advocate for the investigative system reform. Throught the collaboration with a partner media platform ,,Publika” to create and disseminate articles and multi-media products to highlight the importance of the reform. EMC will prepare a short bilingual information document for the newly elected parliament and other stakeholders. Organization will commence direct work on the alternative bill, by the close cooperation with the partner organizations, Coalition and members of academia.

To this end, the project sets out the following objectives:

• Promote the reform of the investigative system and reinstall it on the political agenda;
• Advocate for the implementation of the investigative system reform, through organizing working meetings, preparing information materials and proposing document on legislative proposals.

There are several factors, which ensures successful implementation of the project: the organization has a long-standing experience of working on investigative system reform. In 2018, in the scope of PROLoG supported project, EMC analyzed the investigative system and prepared extensive recommendations for its improvement; Furthermore, organization actively cooperated with the ministry of internal affairs to draft a reform concept; EMC has hosted several meetings on the issue, inviting various governmental bodies, political groups, representatives of the civil society sector. Recently, EMC has renewed the discussion on the importance of the reform in the pre-election context with leading political groups. As a result, almost all political parties, including the ruling party, have included the need for investigative reform in their pre-election programs. 

Share