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Constitutional Court of Georgia Rules to Uphold Constitutional Claim №1717
On May 28, 2025, the Second Board of the Constitutional Court of Georgia ruled to uphold the constitutional claim № 1717 (“Aleksandre Kobaidze and Miranda Shalamberidze v. the Parliament of Georgia”) and declared the second sentence of Section 2 of Article 252 of the Code of Administrative Offences of Georgia with respect to Paragraph 1 of Article 13 of the Constitution of Georgia unconstitutional.
The disputed norm considered, in the course of examining certain administrative offence cases, forcible bringing a person subject to administrative liability by the internal affairs body to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia or to the court.
According to the claimant’s position, depriving a person of liberty and forcibly bringing the latter to the hearing, at a time when the aims of justice and administrative proceedings could have been achieved with equal effectiveness even without direct involvement of the person held administratively liable, did not serve any legitimate aim and therefore was arbitrary in nature.
At the hearing on the merits of the case, the respondent recognized the constitutional claim in relation to Paragraph 1 of Article 13 of the Constitution of Georgia. According to the respondent’s explanation, beyond requiring physical attendance at the hearing, the disputed regulation did not impose any obligation on the individual to participate in the proceedings in any form. Accordingly, it served as an excessive form of paternalism exercised by the State.
As a result of reconciliation of the parties' positions and analysis of the disputed regulation, the Constitutional Court of Georgia concluded that the restriction of a person's right to liberty on the ground defined by the disputed norm did not have a legitimate aim and was arbitrary in nature. Accordingly, the disputed provision presented a self-serving means of restricting the right to liberty and was therefore declared unconstitutional in relation to Paragraph 1 of Article 13 of the Constitution of Georgia.
At the same time, the Constitutional Court of Georgia clarified that when a restriction of the right to liberty imposed on the basis of a disputed norm is, in itself, unjustified and incompatible with the Constitution, independently assessing whether the procedural guarantees provided under the different paragraphs of Article 13 of the Constitution of Georgia were respected during the restriction adds no additional value in the context of protecting the claimant’s rights. In view of the above-mentioned, the Constitutional Court established that in the present case, the disputed norm no longer required an independent assessment in relation to Paragraph 2 of Article 13 of the Constitution of Georgia.
Subject of the Dispute: The constitutionality of the second sentence of Section 2 of Article 252 of the Code of Administrative Offences of Georgia with respect to Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 2 of Article 13 of the Constitution of Georgia.
