The name is convincing: “Promoting Prosecutorial Independence through Monitoring and Engagement,” in short – PrIME. The European Union has launched a new project to reform the prosecution services in Georgia. The aim is bridge the gap to other countries as Georgia’s judicial system lags behind more efficient systems. Although the usual processing time is faster than in neighboring states, the reforms build a multiple pillar system, including factors such as media and monitoring, into an effective judicial system.
PrIME is a two-year project, running from 2018-2020. It aims to enhance the accountability of the PSG and empower information exchanges between the government, civil society, media and the public on the ongoing major reforms in the system.
“Georgia has made significant progress in advancing the sequence of reforms across all sectors of the prosecution service,” said Giorgi Gogadze, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of Georgia. “In the upcoming years, the reform package calls for further actions to enhance the quality of institutional independence and integrity, to empower low-level prosecutors, actively engaging them in the decision-making processes, and to raise citizen trust in and awareness about the justice system of Georgia.”
“We hope to see many new visions and initiatives,” he added. “Over the last 100 years of our history, it has been symbolic and essential to create such independent monitoring tools. Yet, it won’t be enough and there are many additional things we need to do. We need to look for a direction to curb the crime rates and the violence. This pillar will also be included in our project. We’ve been involved in the process since the beginning of the reforms and we are very much looking forward to continuing our support and supervision of the reforms.”
“It is our first project of such a major scale for us, we couldn’t have imagined carrying out such a project a couple of years ago,” Giorgi Kidiashvili, Executive Director of the IDFI, said. “We are very proud and excited to work with the support of the EU. We also see that the Georgian government strongly supports us and this is important- having the backing of the state ensures the improvement of the dialogue between the civil sector and the government.”
“The European Union strongly supports Georgia’s efforts to strengthen the rule of law and human rights protection in line with its international commitments, including the Association Agreement. We are happy to see state institutions engaged actively in this action implemented together with civil society partners,” noted Mikolaj Bekasiak, Communications Attaché at the EU Delegation to Georgia.
The PrIME project assumes a comprehensive approach, as part of which IDFI and its partners will work in four main directions: first, monitoring; second, media investigation; third, capacity building and awareness-raising aimed at ensuring impartiality and fairness in the Georgian prosecution and investigation systems; and, fourth, increasing capacity and awareness on hate crimes and violence against women.
