Communicated on 6 October 2015
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 12611/08
Nunu ALASANIA against Georgia
and 1 other application
(see list appended)
1. A list of the applicants, who are Georgian national, is set out in the annexed document.
A. The circumstances of the cases
2. The facts of the cases, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
3. The first and second applicants were appointed as judges at the Tbilisi Regional Court in 2002 for the term of office of ten years. Prior to that appointment, the first applicant had served as a public prosecutor, a judge at the Tbilisi City Court and a judge of the Supreme Court of Georgia for, respectively, seventeen, ten and three years. As to the second applicant, he had been in various legal professions prior to his judicial appointment.
4. Due to a reorganisation of the judicial system, the Tbilisi Regional Court was liquidated and replaced by a new level of appellate jurisdiction in 2005 – the Tbilisi Court of Appeals. Both applicants were automatically transferred to this newly created judicial body and continued to exercise their judicial duties for the remaining seven years.
5. On 4 April 2007 the High Council of Justice (“the NCJ”) initiated disciplinary proceedings against the applicants. Referring to various procedural decisions taken by the applicants in relation to various criminal cases which had been under their consideration between 2003 and 2005, they were accused of “gross and/or multiple violation of law committed during the adjudication of a matter in court” and “unreasonable protraction of proceedings, failure to exercise or undue exercise of judicial duties or an otherwise failure to abide by discipline at workplace”, the disciplinary offences envisaged by Section 2 § 2 (a) and (e) of the Act on Disciplinary Liability of Judges.
6. By a decision of 18 May 2007 the Disciplinary Board of the Courts of Common Jurisdiction, after having conducted a hearing, found the applicants liable of the above-mentioned disciplinary offences and sanctioned them with the most severe penalty – dismissal from office.
7. The applicants appealed to the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court of Georgia.
8. On 12 September 2007 the Supreme Court delivered a final decision upholding, by a majority vote, the lower instance’s decision of 18 May 2007. One of the judges sitting in the Disciplinary Chamber expressed a dissenting opinion. He stated that, whilst indeed there might have been certain procedural irregularities committed by the applicants in their judicial capacity, it was inappropriate to them with the most severe form of the disciplinary punishment – dismissal from office. Given that neither of the applicants had been subject to disciplinary proceedings before but, on the contrary, had been considered as solid legal professionals, the Supreme Court judge concluded that it would have been sufficient to sanction them by a reprimand.
B. Relevant domestic law
9. Section 2 § 2 (a) and (e) of the Act of 23 February 2000 on Disciplinary Liability of Judges, as amended on 23 June 2005 and applicable at the material time of the events, provided, amongst other, for the following types of disciplinary offences – “gross and/or multiple violation of law committed during the adjudication of a matter in court” and unreasonable protraction of proceedings, failure to exercise or undue exercise of judicial duties or an otherwise failure to abide by discipline at workplace.
10. Section 2 contained a further comment, which read as follows:
“A gross violation of law committed during the adjudication of a matter in court is a violation of significant scope which has already caused in actual fact or could potentially have caused disadvantage to the legitimate rights and interests of a main party to the proceedings or a third party. Violation of law is considered to have been multiple when it was committed three or more times.
If misinterpretation and misapplication of law has been prompted by the judge’s inner faith, it shall not be considered as ‘a gross and/or multiple violation of law’.”
11. Section 4 § 1 of the above-mentioned Act provided for the list of various disciplinary penalties in order of their severity: admonishment, reprimand, rebuke, and dismissal from office of an acting judge.
COMPLAINTS
12. The applicants complain under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the disciplinary proceedings against them were not conducted by “an independent and impartial tribunal established by law” and that the principle of equality of arms was upset during those proceedings.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Was Article 6 § 1 of the Convention applicable to the proceedings in the present cases under its civil or criminal heads?
In the affirmative, was the court which dealt with the applicants’ cases “established by law” and “independent and impartial”, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
Did the applicants have a fair hearing in the determination of their civil rights and obligations or the criminal charges against them, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, was the principle of equality of arms respected during the disciplinary proceedings against them?
APPENDIX
No.
Application
no.
Lodged on
Applicant name
date of birth
place of residence
Represented by
12611/08
14/03/2008
Ms Nunu ALASANIA
10/02/1950
Tbilisi
Mr N. Kvaratskhelia, a lawyer practising in Tbilisi.
25500/08
01/03/2008
Mr Levan BARDAVELIDZE
23/06/1967
Tbilisi
None.
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