On August 6, 2015 “Young Barristers” attended civic organizations meeting with Kakha Kakhishvili, the Minister of Corrections of Georgia. The meeting intended to promote cooperation of the new Ministry with the 3rd sector. Kakhi Kakhishvili got acquainted with specific proposals and initiatives offered by the 3rd sector to be implemented in the system of Corrections. The Minister talked about the changes already made within the system as well as about the future plans to be implemented in record of prisoner’s rights protection. Creation of the public monitoring system of the penitential establishment was one of the main issues of the meeting. The Minister noted, that in order to enter penitential establishment, one should have certain knowledge and skills how to behave with the prisoners. If the members of such public monitoring group will have such skills and will be able to behave accordingly and follow strict rules, he doesn’t see any problem in implementing this initiative.
Archil Kaikatsishvili, the Head of “Young Barristers” raised an issue of life imprisonment before the Minister and expressed his wish to get the young Minister involved in the process of establishing mechanisms, which will make it possible to review the cases of those who were charged with life sentence. Archil Kaikatsishvili mentioned, that the organization is working on the issue of life imprisonment and creation of the mechanisms for reviewing such cases and it is going to publish the research related to the issue late in August, 2015. Kakhi Kakhishvili noted, that each case of life imprisonment is specific and should be considered individually and the work on the issue should be conducted very carefully and the Ministry is ready to work on this issue.
