MPs will no longer be able to visit Mikheil Saakashvili without special permission

Papushvili, on the basis of Bregadze's appeal, forbade MPs to visit Mikheil Saakashvili without special permission - the statement was published on the website of the Parliament today.

"By the letter of December 27, 2022, the Minister of Justice informed the Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia about the tightening of security measures by the Special Penitentiary Service, including in relation to the meetings, in order to protect the safety and legal interests of the convicted Mikheil Saakashvili, and requested that the mentioned circumstance be taken into account when making a decision on issuing a permit to the members of the Parliament of Georgia.

The Imprisonment Code establishes the forms of entering the penitentiary institution and visiting the prisoner, as well as the procedure for issuing a special permission to enter the institution. In addition, the Imprisonment Code provides for several officials (President, Prime Minister, Speaker of the Parliament, Public Defender, etc.) who have the right to enter the penitentiary without a special permit. On the other hand, according to the Imprisonment Code and the Regulations of the Parliament of Georgia, the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, by his own decision, can grant the one-off right to enter the penitentiary institution to any member of the Parliament.

Since October 3, 2021, 228 permits have been issued by the Speaker of the Parliament to members of the Parliament in order to visit Mikheil Saakashvili, which in turn shows that the appeal by the members of the Parliament to grant this right has long gone beyond the purpose mentioned in the appeal - to get acquainted with the conditions in which the prisoner is serving a sentence - and is used directly for a personal or working meeting purpose with the prisoner, which the Speaker of the Parliament has repeatedly pointed out in public.

It should be noted here that along with the Special Penitentiary Service, the monitoring of the proper conditions of serving the sentence by the convict is carried out, first of all, by his lawyers, who have made 533 visits to Mikheil Saakashvili so far. In addition, active monitoring is carried out by the Public Defender and its representatives, who, according to the Imprisonment Code, can visit any prisoner 24 hours a day without hindrance. In relation to Mikheil Saakashvili, they have already used this right 57 times. Accordingly, effective monitoring of the conditions of serving the sentence by Mikheil Saakashvili is fully ensured.

Based on all of the above, by the decision of the Speaker of the Parliament, the right for MPs to enter the penitentiary without a special permit to visit the convicted Mikheil Saakashvili is suspended.

In addition, the permits issued as of today, which refer to the week of January 2, 2023, remain valid," the information reads.