The Social Justice Center (SJC) has raised concerns over the pardoning of 613 prisoners by President Mikheil Kavelashvili on January 19, labeling the process opaque and rushed. The organization suggests the scale and manner of the decision, made shortly after Kavelashvili assumed office, hint at possible partisan motives.
As announced earlier this year, Kavelashvili pardoned the prisoners to mark the Epiphany holiday. While the power to pardon is an exclusive prerogative of the president, with no legal obligation to justify decisions or conduct preliminary reviews, the SJC argues that the process must adhere to fundamental principles of accountability and transparency.
The center emphasized the lack of publicly available information regarding the crimes committed by those pardoned, the criteria used to select them, or whether a special commission was involved in the review process. The statement also questioned how Kavelashvili managed to assess such a large number of cases thoroughly in less than a month after taking office.
Highlighting Georgia’s disproportionate incarceration rates, the Social Justice Center has long advocated for systemic reforms and a more humane criminal justice policy. Instead, it noted that the government continues to misuse legal mechanisms arbitrarily, undermining public trust and the sense of justice for victims.
The timing of this large-scale pardon, the center suggested, could be linked to the upcoming 2024 parliamentary elections, with suspicions that it might serve as a political tool to secure loyalty from criminal and violent groups aligned with the ruling party.
The SJC underlined that the scale of the pardons is notable, as no similar instance has occurred in recent years except in 2013 when 857 individuals were pardoned following a change in government and a political commitment to revise the “zero tolerance” criminal policy of the previous administration. However, in this case, the center pointed out, that no such policy reevaluation or justification has been presented by Kavelashvili.
The statement concluded by condemning the lack of transparency surrounding the pardons and questioning the motives behind the decision. “This practice does not serve public interests or safety but instead reflects political arbitrariness and the instrumentalization of the punitive criminal justice system for partisan purposes,” the Social Justice Center stated.
