Organization the “Young Barristers” address the legislative initiative of Government of Georgia concerning criminal procedure code amendments, according to which the main term of plea bargaining will no longer be sentence agreement.

According to statement of lawyer Levan Beradze, legislative proposal presented to the Parliament by Ministry of Justice creates more judicial guarantees of plea bargaining and improves rights of procedure participants. The basis of plea bargaining will be a degree of charges instead of sentence, which means that the accused pleads guilty and negotiates with the prosecutor for degree of charges. Additional factors foreseen by the prosecutor are advantages of the project mentioned above. In precise, judicial priorities of state, severity of possible sentence, the degree of culpability, the quality of the crime, previous convictions, cooperation with investigation etc. On the other hand, according to the current criminal procedure code, the prosecutor takes into account only the degree of culpability and severity of punishment.

The “Young Barristers” will pay attention to another term of institute development, according to which a report will be signed between the parties indicating the negotiating process between the accused and the prosecutor. The document will be available for the accused and defendants of legitimate interests of the accused.

The “Young Barristers” demand creation of other important judicial guarantees which will grant a party with a status of injured. Although the organization evaluates granting rights to the injured party as a positive fact, points out that in order to create improved law it is also important to present the injured as a separate party.

In the process of plea bargaining reforms, the organization demands provision of wide social discussions, in order to strictly evaluate severe criminal policies of 2003-2012 years (“zero tolerance”) and take effective steps to solve identified problems.