its adoption and enforcement.192 The decision of the Commission is an individual legal act that should be substantiated and based on: • The assessment of the health condition of the convict; • The relevance of the convict’s state of health with the special list of grave and incurable diseases which constitute the basis for the release from the sentence; • Suitability of serving the remaining sentence. Consequently, besides the fact that the Commission studies the health conditions of the concrete convicts, it also assesses the feasibility of serving the remaining sentence by the convict. Therefore, the Commission enjoys the discretion193 in the process of deciding on the release of the prison from sentence due to the state of health. In the reporting period, the Public Defender of Georgia became interested about the certain details of activities of the Joint Permanent Commission of the Ministry of Corrections of Georgia and of the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia and in order to study the question, requested information from the Commission on 24 December 2015 and 18 January 2016. Namely, how many prisoners were released by the Joint Permanent Commission of the Ministry of Corrections of Georgia and of the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia in 2013, 2014 and 2015 due to the grave and incurable diseases (indicating the dates of release and identification data of the convicts). The Office of the Public Defender of Georgia was informed with the letters dated 20 and 28 January 2016 that in 2012-2015 the Commission issued 155 positive opinions out which 107 – due to the sickness. On 29 January 2016, the Public Defender of Georgia has requested information regarding the above 107 individuals from the LEPL Public Service Development Agency. The Office of the Public Defender of Georgia was informed with the letter of the LEPL Public Service Development Agency dated 10 February 2016 that to that date, 55 persons were already deceased. Information regarding the death of the other individuals could not be found in the electronic database of the Agency due to the lack of information regarding the alleged date and place of death. 192 Article 6 of the Statute of the Joint Permanent Commission of the Ministry of Corrections of Georgia and the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia. 193 According to Article 2 para 1 sub-paragraph k of the General Administrative Code of Georgia, ”Discretionary power” means the authority, which provides an administrative agency or official with some degree of latitude in regard to choosing the most reasonable decision among several decisions in compliance with public and private interests.” NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM (NPM), 2015 123