Recent Jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of Georgia on the Right to Liberty

Abstract

On 6 April 2009, the Second Board of the Constitutional Court of Georgia delivered judgment on the case the Public Defender of Georgia v. the Parliament of Georgia.

In this case, the claimant disputed the constitutionality of Article 142.1(f) of the Criminal Procedure Code of Georgia (hereinafter referred to as the “CPC”) in terms of Article 18.1 and the first sentence of Article 18.3 of the Constitution of Georgia. The CPC Article 142, entitled “grounds for arrest”, defines the legal preconditions which enable the arrest of a person suspected in commission of a crime. One of the grounds provided for by the impugned provision reads as follows: “Arrest of a person suspected in the commission of a crime can be effected on the basis of any of the following grounds: ...f) a person may flee.”

The given case is of interest in the light of the preceding judgment #2/3/182,185,191 of the Constitutional Court of Georgia, delivered on 29 January 2003, on a similar issue. In particular, the previous decision ruled on the unconstitutionality of Article 142.2 of the CPC which had similar contents as the provision challenged by the Public Defender of Georgia in the present case. It was ruled that the impugned provision in the previous case had interfered with such a fundamental human right as physical liberty.