FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 12075/22
Ketevan JASHI
against Georgia
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 2 December 2025 as a Committee composed of:
Anja Seibert-Fohr, President,
Ana Maria Guerra Martins,
András Jakab, judges,
and Giorgi Badashvili, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 12075/22) against Georgia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 22 February 2022 by a Georgian national, Ms Ketevan Jashi (“the applicant”), who was born in 1965, lives in Tbilisi and was represented by Ms N. Samadashvili, a lawyer practising in Tbilisi;
the decision to give notice of the complaints under Article 6 § 1 and Article 8 of the Convention to the Georgian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr B. Dzamashvili, of the Ministry of Justice, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the applicant’s complaint that a final judgment in her favour, issued against a private entity, was not fully enforced at the domestic level. She relied on Article 6 § 1 and Article 8 of the Convention.
2. On 8 July 2013 the applicant was appointed, following a competition, as a full professor at Ilia State University (“the University”). She was offered a fixed-term contract effective from 12 July 2013 to 1 May 2018. According to the contract, as amended in 2014, her salary was 3,000 Georgian laris (GEL, approximately 1,021 euros (EUR)).
3. Whilst this was not the applicant’s particular situation, as her contract was of a fixed-term nature, the University Statute permitted at the time the Academic Council to award, based on the University’s internal regulations and procedure, an open-ended (უვადო) contract to professors with exceptional service and notable research achievements.
4. On 9 March 2016, following a disciplinary inquiry, the University terminated the applicant’s contract and dismissed her.
5. The applicant instituted proceedings against the University requesting annulment of her dismissal as full professor, reinstatement, and compensation for lost earnings covering the period from her dismissal to the end of her contract. The application did not cite Article 6(3) § 1 of the Labour Code (see paragraph 16 below), the Higher Education Act (see paragraphs 17-18 below), or the University Statute (see paragraph 3 above). The University’s late response was not allowed, and the Tbilisi City Court adopted a default judgment on 16 June 2016. Namely, owing to the lack of the respondent’s response, the court accepted as proven, without an oral hearing on the merits, all the factual claims made by the applicant, granting the application in full. Additionally, citing Article 6(3) § 1 of the Labour Code (see paragraph 16 below), it noted that a continuous employment exceeding thirty months had effectively created an open-ended labour relationship between the applicant and the University.
6. The judgment became final on 18 June 2018, and the applicant submitted a writ of execution to the Tbilisi Enforcement Bureau (“the Bureau”).
7. In July 2018 the University paid the applicant GEL 61,942.86 (approximately EUR 22,000) in lost earnings. Subsequently the Rector of the University ordered her reinstatement, but she was unable to assume the position as her contract had expired on 1 May 2018 (see paragraph 2 above). The University then explained that reinstating her beyond the scope of the initial contract was objectively impossible: it would violate the Higher Education Act as permanent appointment of a professor, under an open-ended contract, had only been possible through a competitive elective procedure, subject to special conditions set out in the law (see paragraphs 17-18 below).
8. On 25 September 2018 the Bureau requested the Tbilisi City Court to clarify the default judgment. The court, without referring to any special rules on academic appointments and limiting itself to the terms of the original default judgment, ruled that that the judgment in question had required the University to “reinstate [the applicant] to the position of full professor under an open-ended (უვადო) labour agreement.”
9. On 9 October 2018 the applicant instituted proceedings against the Bureau. She requested that the Bureau take all necessary measures to ensure her reinstatement.
10. In May 2019 the University reiterated its submissions (see paragraph 7 above) but offered the applicant a contract for the position of a lecturer with a monthly salary of GEL 3,000, together with salary arrears from 1 May 2018 until the date of appointment, in order to mirror the conditions of her original fixed-term contract (see paragraph 2 above). The applicant rejected the offer.
11. On 20 February 2020 of the Tbilisi City Court granted the applicant’s application lodged against the Bureau (see paragraph 9 above). However, it was overturned on 11 March 2021 by the Tbilisi Court of Appeal. The appellate court concluded that the impossibility of fully enforcing the default judgment had not been attributable to any omission on the part of the Bureau. To the contrary, the latter had taken all measures it had been empowered to take under domestic legislation to have the default judgment enforced, including by sending the enforcement material to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to assess whether any criminal liability arose as regards the applicant’s complaint that the default judgment had not been fully enforced. It had been unclear what additional measures the Bureau could take to ensure her reinstatement.
12. The Tbilisi Court of Appeal additionally stated that the Higher Education Act (see paragraphs 17-18 below) and the relevant higher education institution’s statute constituted lex specialis setting out the specific criteria and procedure for academic appointments, including the election procedure and the duration of contracts offered to academic personnel. The appellate court then noted the University’s submissions regarding the impossibility of reinstating the applicant, who had been employed under a fixed-term contract, to an open-ended professorial position which could only be filled through a competitive elective procedure, subject to the special conditions set out in the law (see paragraph 7 above). The court emphasised in this regard that during the proceedings before it the applicant had been offered an open-ended contractual position of lecturer, with identical remuneration. However, the applicant had refused this alternative.
13. On 26 October 2021 the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s reasoning and declared the applicant’s appeal on points of law inadmissible.
RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK
14. Pursuant to Article 248 of the Code of Civil Procedure, “a court shall not, in its judgment, award a party what it has not requested, or more than what it has requested.”
15. Under Article 1 § 1 of the Labour Code, the Code “regulates labour and related relations within the territory of Georgia unless they are regulated differently by a special law or by international treaties [binding on] Georgia.”
16. Article 6(3) § 1 (on the adopting of labour agreements) of the Labour Code, as it stood at the material time, read as follows:
“If a labour agreement has been in force for more than thirty months or if labour relations have continued on the basis of adopting fixed-term labour agreements two or more consecutive times and the duration of the above-mentioned labour relations exceeds thirty months, an open-ended labour agreement shall be deemed to have been adopted.”
17. Section 35(1) of the Higher Education Act, as in force before 27 November 2015, provided as follows:
“A person with a doctorate degree, who has at least six years of scientific-pedagogical work experience, may be elected as a full professor. Additional conditions are determined by the statute of the higher education institution.”
18. Legislative amendments enacted on 27 November 2015 established the position of professor as a permanent appointment. Section 35(1) of the Higher Education Act was formulated as follows:
“A person holding a doctoral or equivalent academic degree, possessing at least six years of scientific and pedagogical experience, distinguished professional and/or scientific achievements, and meeting the requirements established by the statute of the higher education institution, may be elected to the position of professor. Election to a professorial position is of a permanent nature. ...”
19. On 15 March 2019 the Supreme Court clarified, in another case involving the applicant’s employer, that reinstatement of an individual to a previous position was not possible if the term of the original contract had expired.
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
20. Relying on Article 6 § 1 and Article 8 of the Convention the applicant complained about her inability to have the final default judgment of 16 June 2016 in respect of her labour dispute with the University fully enforced at domestic level.
21. The Government argued, inter alia, that the enforcement authorities had taken all reasonable steps to enforce the default judgment against the applicant’s employer.
22. The applicant disagreed.
23. The Court reiterates that the execution of a judgment given by any court must be regarded as an integral part of the “trial” for the purposes of Article 6 (see Sharxhi and Others v. Albania, no. 10613/16, § 92, 11 January 2018). However, the right of “access to court” does not impose an obligation on a State to execute every judgment of a civil character without having regard to the particular circumstances of the case (see Sanglier v. France, no. 50342/99, § 39, 27 May 2003). In the present case, the dispute was between private parties (see Kotov v. Russia [GC], no. 54522/00, §§ 92-95, 3 April 2012). Consequently, the Court’s task is to determine whether the measures taken by the authorities were adequate and sufficient, and whether the State, as the holder of public authority, acted with due diligence in assisting the creditor in the execution of the judgment (see Sekul v. Croatia (dec.), no. 43569/13, § 55, 30 June 2015, with further references).
24. Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the applicant insisted that the execution of the judgment in her favour could only be effected by ordering her reinstatement to a permanent academic position.
25. However, the enforcement proceedings revealed that the judgment in the applicant’s favour could not be executed exactly as outlined in the original ruling and the decision interpreting it. Specifically, it appears that the simplified default judgment procedure (see paragraph 5 above) failed to consider the specific regulations governing employment in the higher education sphere which did not allow an automatic conversion of a fixed-term contract into an open-ended one. As a result, the judgment may be understood as having extended the applicant’s claim beyond the scope permitted under domestic law and beyond what the applicant herself had sought in her claim against the University, as she had never, even remotely, requested the conversion of her initial fixed-term contract into an open-ended one (see paragraphs 2-3, 5, 12, 14-15 and 17-18 above; see also, mutatis mutandis, Peikrishvili and Basiladze v. Georgia (dec.), no. 53191/10, §§ 36-37, 5 February 2019). In this respect, the Court cannot overlook the fact that during the enforcement proceedings a reasonable alternative solution was made available to the applicant. This solution sought to find a balance between the various interests at stake, but the applicant rejected it (see paragraphs 10 and 12 above, and compare, mutatis mutandis, Cıngıllı Holding A.Ş. and Cıngıllıoğlu v. Turkey, nos. 31833/06 and 37538/06, § 41, 21 July 2015). Additionally, the applicant did not seek damages as regards the impact of the default judgment on her pecuniary interests but only contested the diligence of the Enforcement Bureau in the enforcement procedure.
26. Against this background, and as regards the conduct of the Enforcement Bureau, the domestic courts assessed all the facts of the case, the legal basis for enforcement, and the applicable law, concluding that the efforts of the Enforcement Bureau were beyond reproach. The Court sees no reason to disagree with their reasoning (see paragraphs 11-12 above; see also Kandyba v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 33137/16, § 56, 13 October 2020).
27. In the light of the foregoing, the Court cannot find that the national authorities’ approach to their duty to enforce the judgment in the applicant’s case was arbitrary or unreasonable, given that the judgment was not enforceable in the specific manner she asserted, owing to circumstances of a substantial and compelling nature (see, for instance, Martynyuk v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 82673/17, § 36, 8 July 2025, and Peikrishvili and Basiladze, cited above, § 37).
28. Accordingly, the Court finds that the application is manifestly ill‑founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 15 January 2026.
{signature_p_1} {signature_p_2}
Giorgi Badashvili Anja Seibert-Fohr
Acting Deputy Registrar President