In Georgia, experts differ in opinions on need to change articles on espionage in the Criminal Code

Georgian experts are not unanimous regarding the unconstitutional nature of Article 314 of the Criminal Code (espionage).

On August 3 a lawsuit was submitted to the Constitutional Court of Georgia about the unconstitutionality of the above article by Lasha Tugushi, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Resonansi", an expert on constitutional issues Vakhtang Khmaladze and lawyer Alexander Baramidze. So far, the Constitutional Court has not accepted the suit to consideration.

"The punishment under this article can be awarded to any person. The second part of the article specifying the term 'any information' implies that it can refer to any data that does not contain any state secrets; and the term 'a foreign organization' implies any organizations, including the NATO, UN, EU or OSCE. But if the information contains no state secrets, then, it might be available to everyone. Why should the state forbid disseminating it? After all, the Constitution of Georgia allows people to create, gather or distribute any information," Mr Khmaladze, one of the authors of the lawsuit, said in his interview to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Lawyer Kakha Kakhishvili, head of the NGO "Centre for Research of Elections and Political Technologies", said the that in case of amendments the above article will duplicate Article 313 of the Criminal Code, which criminates revealing state secrets to a foreign state by a person, who knows these secrets by virtue of his or her position or which was entrusted to him or her with regard to exceptional circumstances.

According to his story, today in Georgia, like in other former Soviet Union republics, the prosecution party has the advantage at trial. "However, judging by the trends and reforms observed in Georgia, I hope for changes both in the judiciary and law enforcement agencies; and the prosecution and defence will have equal rights and duties; the court won't give preference to any of the parties; and inspectors and prosecutors will properly treat the criminal law," the expert said.