Case of Judge N. Khazhalia

1. Judge Nikoloz Khazhalia (the applicant), a citizen of Georgia, brings an application against Georgia.
   
   
2. The applicant is a victim of arbitrary and illegal persecution, conviction and punishment as well as of torture. This case involves numerous momentous violations of Georgian national law and fundamental principles of law as cited in the European Convention of Human Rights. The judgments of the domestic courts were also based upon unlawful evidences and obvious misinterpretation of law as well as upon incredible ignorance of facts and law.
   
   
3. On 22 July 2006 the judge of the Kutaisi city court pronounced the judgment, by virtue of which, the applicant was declared guilty of article 338, par. 1 of the criminal code of Georgia (edition of 1999), which proscribes “bribe-taking by a State official for fulfilment or non-fulfilment of any action in favour of a bribe-giver” and was sentenced to five-year imprisonment. (See attached Annex A 10).
   
   
4. The applicant duly appealed this judgment to the Kutaisi Appellate Court. On 28 November 2006 the Kutaisi appellate court upheld the judgment of 22 July 2006 of the Kutaisi city court. (See attached Annex A 11).
   
   
5. On 25 April 2007 the chamber for criminal cases of the Supreme Court of Georgia did not examine the applicant's and his counsel for the defense G. Sichinava's appeals for
   the motive as if "this case is not important for legal development and establishing a common judicial practice" and that "this judgment does not differ from the practice of the Supreme Court on such category of cases". (See attached Annex A 12).
   
   
6. Thus, the applicant has exhausted all domestic remedies that gave him a possibility to apply to the European Court of Human Rights seeking the restoration of his violated rights.
   
   
7. It's to be noted that the applicant did not plead guilty and considered that he became victim of provocation, because in August 2005 he did not approve an investigative action performed at P. Gunia's house by the Senaki police department and the regional department in the village Zanati, Abasha region. As a result of this operation firearms and other things had been seized.
   
   
8. The applicant did not approve the above operation because when he examined a petition, he found out that the police had committed illegality, namely, it had put the mentioned arms at Gunia's house. For such "disobe-dience" the administration of the regional police department threatened to arrest him that they did afterwards through the crime provocation. (See also statement of facts).
   
   
9. The arrest of the applicant, among with the other purposes, served also the so-called preventive measure for other judges that any kind of objection to the executive power would be reacted in the way like it has been in this case regarding the not-guilty judge.
   
   
10. This criminal case is overloaded with the essential violations of the criminal procedural legislation of Georgia that is demonstrated by the respective attached annexes. Namely, all procedures of the personal search of the applicant, that of his car and house, as well as his detention were scandalously violated because the relevant searching and investigative authorities did not take into account the fact that the applicant was a special subject ⁽¹⁾ of law, because he was a judge. Besides, no eye-witnesses were allowed to attend these operations despite their and the applicant's several demands.
    
    
11. In addition, the investigation against the applicant was initiated by the non-competent prosecutors' office. Namely, the so-called “crime” was committed in the region of Georgia where the jurisdiction of the prosecutors' office, which had started the investigation independently and willfully against the applicant, did not apply.
    
    
12. Moreover, the court judgments contain numerous contradicted facts that do not reflect the reality. Equally contradictory was a testimony of the investigator Mg. to the court, who could not comment many facts and had no answers to the questions regarding the violations of the procedural legislation committed while performing the different investigative actions. It's to be noted that because of numerous fabricated documents by him, he did not even remember the details important for the case (See attached Annex A 7).
    
    
13. Besides the above facts, this case involves other essential violations of the criminal procedural legislation of Georgia and the international standards set within the different international documents. The applicant demonstrates these violations and proves the trustfulness of his statements in the application by referring to the relevant annexes.
    
    
14. The most scandalous is that the applicant was object of direct use of brute force by representatives of the State. He experienced first hand torture through a concerted effort on the part of Constitutional Security Department of the Ministry of Interior of Georgia. The applicant submits that he and his neighbour were victims of torture by beating and electroshocks. The pain was so intolerable that the applicant even lost consciousness and fell down. The applicant was subject to torture some time later in the car when he was transported to another place. Namely he was beat by pistol butt on his knees and feet. It caused inhuman pain. As a result of the above torture, the applicant got health problems, namely, his kidneys have been injured and he had incontinence of urine. (See attached Annex A 6).
    
    
15. The applicant testified to courts about suffering torture. Any hope on or expectation of domestic remedies, particularly on the issue of torture wholly ignores the reality that such an application would have been fruitless.
    
    
16. The ECHR will observe that the applicant contests every single intentional false interpretation of uncontradicted evidence of the case by the prosecutor's office and the courts of Georgia and presents his argumentation to the ECHR accompanied by the real evidence of the case in order to be declared not guilty and illegal prisoner and to achieve the just rehabilitation.
    
    
17. In accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights may declare the application admissible and review this case for a chain of substantive violation of the applicant's human rights as proscribed by article 3, 5 and 6 of the Convention.