We would like to respond to the campaign conducted by Public Defender in recent period against the Georgian Police.
The MIA has already issued the statement regarding events occurred at the adjacent territory of Tbilisi City Assembly with relevant legal explanation, which upheld the legality of police actions.
Moreover, we emphasize that the representatives of the Office of Public Defender have never faced obstacles regarding having relations with detained persons in the MIA system, paying the visits to them, including in the present case. The representatives of the Office of Public Defender were given opportunity to visit the persons, who were detained and taken from the manifestation to the police units taking into consideration objective circumstances as the first opportunity physically appeared.
Therefore, we are astonished due to incorrect interpretation of this fact by Public Defender.
We once again declare that police acts within the framework of the law in compliance with the principle of political neutrality.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs greatly respects the Institute of Public Defender, which should ensure protection of each and every citizen regardless of his/her profession or other type of belonging. Therefore, we are concerned since unsubstantiated accusations periodically stated towards the most important law enforcement body - the MIA, which somehow became the tendency, aim not only undermining this body but also cast a shadow on itself the Institute of Public Defender.
Public Defender is obliged to perform the functions of constitutional body impartially. Public Defender, as a member of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, should realize the importance of best practice of relations between the Institute of Public Defender and the state bodies and should act objectively, from the position of critical observer, should make an effort in order to ensure as much as possible the protection of human rights in compliance with high standards. And achieving this goal is impossible by unsubstantiated accusations, personal assessments, deliberately misleading the society and self-undermining of the Institute of Public Defender.
Furthermore, we note that statements of Public Defender about increasing the facts of inhuman treatment of detained persons in police system are absolutely unsubstantiated, superficial and do not reflect the objective truth. When Public Defender accuses the police in cruelty and excessive force based on only narrative given by a person accused in serious crime, especially when the mentioned person is the relative of his spouse and is close to his family, uses the mandate of Public Defender in order to acquit the relative accused in robbery, we think that conclusions should be made by the society itself.
The Public Defender has never defended the rights of police officers and has never protested on violence directed towards the police or slander made by persons accused in various crimes. Furthermore, pursuant to the Georgian Constitution, presumption of innocence is applied in terms of every citizen, including police officers. We repeatedly noted that approaches inappropriate for the Institute of Public Defender endanger the security of the society itself and create the precondition for encouragement a crime.
We would like to emphasize that detection of any violation and adequately respond to it is, first of all, the interest of the MIA. In terms of this, the General Inspection works effectively, which does not leave any report without response. The relevant statistics indicate on abovementioned, which is open and public for every interested person. Aforementioned statistics indicate on the approaches of the Ministry in terms of any wrongdoing.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs never shirks the objective criticism and is committed to have a constructive cooperation with every interested organization, in particular with the Office of Public Defender with the aim of ensuring the environment of western standards, oriented on protection of human rights.
