HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AGENCIES UNDER THE MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS legedly a police officer, to force our representatives out from the room. By his behavior, Giorgi Revazishvili hindered the Special Preventive Group from performing its functions and used physical violence against the group members. By doing so, Giorgi Revazishvili violated the requirements of the Organic Law of Georgia on the Public Defender of Georgia and exceeded his rights prescribed by law. On this ground, on 18 October 2013, the Public Defender addressed the Minister of Internal Affairs with its Recommendation No. 771/03 advising the Minister to personally inquire into the obstruction of activities of the Public Defender’s Special Preventive Group and the exceeding of official powers prescribed by the Georgian legislation by Giorgi Revazishvili, Deputy Chief of the Sagarejo Police Division. In his Recommendation, the Public Defender asked the Minister of Internal affairs to take appropriate measure to respond to this incident. The Ministry of Internal Affairs then informed by the Public Defender by its Letter No. 2446496 dated 29 November 2013 that employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs – Giorgi Revazishvili, Manuchar Gabelia and Elguja Javakhishvili – were issued recommendatory letters on the basis of a report of the Ministry’s Inspectorate-General. Members of the Special Preventive Group have been monitoring police stations and divisions for years but they have never ever encountered such a problem before. Monitoring of both police units and temporary detention isolators was always going on smoothly without any artificial obstacles. Members of all of the police divisions and temporary isolators, including the employees of the Sagarejo temporary detention isolator, have fully cooperated with the Public Defender’s representatives in the past helping them conduct their monitoring in a full-fledged manner. We hope that the incident at the Sagarejo police will stay an exception and will never be repeated so that members of the Public Defender’s Office are not prevented from performing their duties. TREATMENT QQ The Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs truly plays a crucial role in protecting public safety and maintaining a good legal order in a democratic state. In implementing its functions, the police must respect the honor and dignity of citizens as members of the society and must not tolerate violation of human rights and freedoms. The extent to which human rights are protected in a given State depends much on how effective the police work is. In addition, the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs is responsible for each of its employee’s operation with the human rights standards. The Georgian legislation determines the forms, methods and means of how the police should implement their functions. Under the Law on Police, all police officers are obliged to firmly adhere to the principles of protection and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, lawfulness, prohibition of discrimination, proportionality, discharge of discretionary powers, political neutrality and transparency of the police activity. Forms, methods and means of police work must not be such as to encroach on the right to life, inviolability of person and property rights or other fundamental rights and freedoms. In performing their duties, police members must not be inflicting damage to the environment. Torture, inhuman or degrading treatment are never permissible in carrying out police measures. In the course of its monitoring activities, the Special Preventive Group examines the treatment of detainees by the police both during and after arrest. In the reporting period the Public Defender received complaints from citizens about ill-treatment administered by police at the time of arrest. The Public Defender’s Office forwarded the materials about each of these allegations to the Chief Prosecution Office.102 The replies received from the Chief Prosecution Office suggest that none of the law enforcement officials possibly involved in ill-treating the citizens were prosecuted or tried by courts. This situation raises some valid concerns about effectiveness of how authorities 101 Adopted by the Resolution of the UN General Assembly No. 43/173 dated 9 December 1988. 102 For more details about some these cases, please see a sub-chapter entitled “Alleged excessive use of force by law enforcement agents”, p. 178. 2013 It is unfortunate that police officers are not always adhering to these principles and causing violations of human rights to happen. This conclusion is based on the monitoring results and the analysis of citizens’ complaints filed with the Public Defender’s Office during the reporting period. Pursuant to the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention of Imprisonment,101 all persons under any form of detention or imprisonment shall be treated in a humane manner and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person. NPM Report 51