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Ethnic Minorities Justice Accessibility Research

2013

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Ethnic Minorities Justice Accessibility Research was made possible with the support of Eurasia

Partnership foundation, EWMI-JILEP and US Agency for International Development in the

framework of the project “Accessible Justice for Ethnic and Religious Minorities in the

Administrative Justice Sphere” implemented by CSO “CiDA”.

The contents of the research are the sole responsibility of CiDA/ARC and do not necessarily

reflect the views of EPF, EWMI- JILEP and USAID.

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Introduction

Access to justice is one of the indicators of democratic development of the country. Access to

justice can be seen as a combination of components that serve the process of receiving fair

verdict of legal issues through court.

Important components for judicial process:

1) Public awareness on:

a. Personal rights;

b. Existing legislation and enforcement mechanisms;

c. Level of public awareness on activities of courts and other state institutions;

d. Ways of settlement of legal disputes.

2) Trust level toward different state institutions:

a. Quality and access to services provided by courts and other state institutions

determine the level of trust toward these institutions;

3) Understanding of fairness and existing infrastructure of legal assistance.

a. Fair legislation and impartial enforcement;

b. Legal qualification that ensures people of different ability to defend their own

interests.

Georgia is a multiethnical country, with two regions where ethnic minorities reside in collective

centers and represent majority of the population of the regions. Ethnic minorities also live in

Kakheti region, where majority of population is represented by ethnic Georgians. The fact that

majority of ethnic minorities living in a collective centers still are not familiar with Georgian

language, is one of the obstacles to accessibility of justice, accordingly these regions are of

crucial importance for the research.

Purpose for the research

Evaluation of the accessibility of justice for ethnic minorities residing in Georgia.

Objectives of the research

1. Study of level of awareness of ethnic and religious minorities on their rights.

2. Study of level of awareness on accessible justice and legal assistance for ethnic and

religious minorities in the administrative justice sphere.

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Methodology

Research was conducted in July, 2013 in 10 municipalities of 3 regions of Georgia.

Quantitative and qualitative (focus groups) research methods were used during the study.

Quantitative research

Due to the objectives of research regions and towns, where the quantitative research was

conducted was selected according to the ethnicity of the population. The regions where ethnic

minorities reside in collective centers were selected.

Sampling area: To form selection framework, data from General Population Census of 2002 was

used.1 Regions with three or more municipalities with at least one settlement with population of

60% ethnic minorities were selected. Three regions were identified, Kvemo Kartli, Samtskhe-

Javakheti and Kakheti.

Sampling method: Three stage cluster approach was used. First stage covered region, second –

municipality and third was settlement.

Settlements populated by 60% ethnic minorities were identified.

Respondents were selected according to settlements, proportional to population.

Primary sampling unit of selection was settlement, secondary sampling unit was household and

the final sampling unit was represented by 18 years and older persons. Respondents were

selected according to their ethnicity.

In each primary unit, secondary sampling unit was selected by randomized sampling method.

Step size was different for each primary unit and depended on density.

In secondary sampling unit, the final unit was selected based on the household family member’s

last birth date.

Percentage of responses is - 82%.

In targeted regions (Kvemo Kartli, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kakheti) quantitative research was

conducted covering 1000 respondents. Targeted groups consisted of non Georgian ethnic

population. Research was conducted through direct interviewing. Questionnaires with closed

and open questions (49 question in total) were used as a tool of the quantitative research.

1 http://geostat.ge/cms/site_images/_files/georgian/census/2002/I%20tomi%20-

%20saqarTvelos%20mosaxleobis%202002%20wlis%20pirveli%20erovnuli%20sayovelTao%20aRweris%20Sedegebi.pdf

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Table 1. Division of respondents according to regions2

Region Quantity % Sampling

error

Kvemo Kartli 460 46 3.54%

Samtskhe –

Javakheti

390 39

3.26%

Kakheti 150 15 5.71%

Total: 1000 100 2.21%

Table 2. Targeted regions and municipalities:

Region Town

Kvemo Kartli Bolnisi

Gardabani

Marneuli

Dmanisi

Samtskhe- Javakheti Akhaltsikhe

Akhalkalaki

Ninotsminda

Kakheti Telavi

Sagarejo

Lagodekhi

Qualitative Research

In targeted regions Kvemo Kartli, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kakheti 6 focus group meetings were

conducted, 2 focus groups in each region. Total of 68 persons participated in focus group

meetings. Local NGOs, media representatives and local lawyers participated in focus group

meetings.

Discussions of focus groups were conducted according to prior established guidelines. Research

topics were inconsistence with research objectives and goals.

Demographic data

Table 3. Which nationality respondents identify themselves with?

2

2 ( )

( 1)

z pq N ne

N n

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Nationality %

Armenian 46

Azerbaijanian 43

Representatives of other ethnicities (Russian, Greek, Ukrainian, Kurd) 11

Table 4. Division of respondents according to gender

Female 56,3%

Male 43,7%

Average age of respondents was 41. 19% of respondents are unemployed, 21% is employed, and

35% self-employed. Among employed persons, half of them are self-employed, leads his/her

business without other employees.

Table 5. Employment of respondents

Main job of the respondent %

Lead my own business/self-employed without other employees, including

working on land 54

Lead my own business/self-employed, have other employees, including

working on land 13

Employed in a local small family business/family enterprise

9

Employed in local medium or large private organization, company or

enterprise

7

Employed in state institution, company or enterprise 15

Employed in foreign or international organization, company, enterprise or

joint enterprise

1

Employed in local or international nongovernmental/noncommercial

organization

1

Major Conclusions

Obstacles related to access to justice

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1. Lack of information:

a. About legal topics;

b. Ways of solving legal issues;

c. Mechanisms of settling legal issues;

d. About rights.

2. Low level of legal understanding and legal culture;

3. Lack of local qualified legal service;

4. Low level of integration and knowledge of the state language;

5. Low readiness of others’ intervention to settle the conflicts.

Quality of awareness and rights

Non Georgian ethnic population of Georgia considers that more or less they have information

about their own rights and courts, they assess their awareness with “2” point on 3 point scale

where 1 indicates no awareness, 3 indicates high awareness. As was expected, answers differed

among regions. In Kvemo Kartli more respondents believe that they lack information about

their rights, than in Samtskhe – Javakheti and Kakheti.

Table 6. Are you informed about your own rights? Please assess on a scale from 3 to 1. (3

meaning well informed, 1 – not informed).

Evaluation

(Average score)

Kvemo Kartli 2,16

Samtskhe-

Javakheti

2,36

Kakheti 2,31

Difference between averages:

Kvemo Kartli/Samtskhe-Javakheti P-value (Independent Samples Test)= 0,000

Kvemo Kartli/Kakheti P-value (Independent Samples Test)= 0,002

It should be noted, that awareness about their rights female respondents from Kvemo Kartli

region assessed with lower score than female respondents from other regions.

Evaluation

(Average Score)

Male

Evaluation

(Average Score)

Female

Kvemo Kartli 2,08 2,25

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Samtskhe -

Javakheti

2,32 2,40

Kakheti 2,28 2,34

Difference between averages:

Kvemo Kartli/Samtskhe-Javakheti P-value (Independent Samples Test)= 0,000

Kvemo Kartli/Kakheti P-value (Independent Samples Test)= 0,005

Lack of information for Non Georgian ethnic citizens is related to the low level of integration,

that is also confirmed by this research – the few information they have is about situations in

other regions and political & economical processes.3 One of the factors of low integration is not

knowing the state language.

In Azerbaijanian communities strongest problem is related to access to justice for female

residents. As members of focus groups mentioned, women in Azerbaijanian villages have no

rights at all. It’s very hard for them to defend their rights, they are constantly controlled by

parents or spouses’ family members.

Knowledge about the functions of administrative organ is quite low. 18% of respondents are not

aware of functions of administrative organ. There were not vivid differences among responses of

female and male respondents.

67% of respondents know that board is an administrative body, but only 35% consider assembly

to be administrative body as well. 23% think that court is administrative body and 5% considers

president’s administration to be administrative body as well.

Respondents are not aware what is individual administrative act, including those who have

received individual administrative act during last 12 month (103 respondents) – 16% did not

even know that it could be appealed; only 3% knew about appeal procedures. Among those who

appealed the act (32 respondents), for 17 of them the procedure was difficult. 4 of them

considered to be easy, and 8 though it was neither difficult not easy. The reasons of difficulty

were, lack of knowledge of state language, no information how to file the complaint and about

the existed pre-made forms.

Besides abovementioned lack of information about administrative proceedings, problem related

to access to justice is also linked to the situation that for settlement of the dispute people often

approach the body that doesn’t have competence to solve the case. According to qualitative

3 Diagram 24 Chapter: Awareness and rights

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research part of the population has to go through longer way and approach many state

institutions to solve the issue, as they are not sure which institution they should approach for

settling the case.

Lack of information and no knowledge of state language is the reason that citizens, especially

Azerbaijanian community members usually use other members of their community who know

state language and ask for special fee to act as mediators.

Trust toward state institutions

According to the research trust of ethnic minorities toward different institutions is higher than

average. The trust is higher in Kvemo Kartli and Kakheti, rather than in Samtkhe – Javakheti.

Trust is higher than average (>3,5 on the scale of 5 the highest) toward judicial bodies – ethnic

minorities rely on courts and police. Respondents trust police more than courts. If trust level

toward court is 3,6 point on 5 point scale, than the indicator for police is 4,18 point. Though the

trust toward police is high, residents are afraid of police and call them only at the last stage.

There is high reliance toward self governance. Trust toward local bodies and assembly on 5

point scale is 3, 8 and 3, 7.

Respondents also give high evaluation to work of self governance institutions. 71% of

respondents’ positively evaluate their activities. Majority thinks that personnel of board and

assembly are competent, polite and oriented on problem solving, their work is transparent

Though board and assembly performance was positively evaluated, it’s worth mentioning that

highest points were given to self governance in Kakheti region, and lowest in Samtskhe –

Javakheti.

Access to justice

One of the criterias for accessibility of justice is the sense of fairness in society. What is the part

of society believes that state treats them fairly. According to the results, majority of respondents

(91%) consider that Georgian government treats him/her and people like him/her fairly. Only

small number (1,4%) thinks that government treats ethnic minorities unduly.

Though majority of population thinks that state is fair and court performance was assessed by

higher score than average, fifth of the respondents (30%) believe that accessibility of justice is

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easier for ethnic Georgians, state representatives and their close acquaintances (47%). These

peoples trust in court is relatively low. 4

Majority of respondents thinks that there is no corruption in courts. Only 0,7% (7 respondent)

noted that during last 2 years judges asked for bribe from him/her/his acquaintance.

Slightly less than third of the respondents (31%) consider that access to justice is improved

during last six month. Mostly Kvemo Kartli respondents referred to improvement of justice

(43%), unlike respondents from Samktkhe Javakheti region (19%). Nearly similar numbers of

respondents (32%) think that access to justice has not changed, and for 3% situation is changed

to worst.

74% of respondents agree that in their community citizens can receive legal assistance. 17% of

respondents don’t know where to ask for legal assistance, fifth of the respondents (21%) think

that this service can be received through private lawyer, 10%- consider NGOs, and 19%- refer

to state legal aid service center. In Kvemo Kartli public organizations are not considered to be

legal aid provides at all, while in Samtskhe Javakheti fifth of the respondents (21%) refer to

them as legal aid providers.

A bit more than fifth of all respondents (27%) can’t answer the question about the specific legal

topics that local people need assistance with. Third of the respondents (34%) believe that these

are social topics, like pension, benefits, assistance and etc. Issues like: divorce, immovable

property, labor disputes and etc were mentioned as topics for legal assistance <5% respondents.

Social cases as topics for assistance were made from respondents from Kvemo Kartli and Kakheti.

Majority of respondents (71%), have not even heard about any disputes in their settlement.

Among those, who know about disputes, mainly refer to neighbor disputes 40%, land rights

disputes 19%, family disputes 23%. According to respondents residents mainly uses court to

settle the dispute or try to keep quiet. There is higher number of people who keep quiet about

their problems and try to solve them by their own strength in Kvemo Karli and Kakheti.

More respondents from Samtkhe – Javakheti would advise acquaintances to approach NGOs for

legal assistance (6,5%), rather than in Kvemo Kartli (0,9%) and Kakheti (0%). Though the trust

result toward courts is quite high, only 4% consider courts to be a body to solve legal issues

(Kvemo Kartli 3%, Samtskhe Javakheti 8%, Kakheti 0%).

Table 7. Which organization would they advise to address in case of necessary legal assistance.

4** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

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Kvemo

Kartli

Samtskhe

Javakheti

Kakheti

Legal Aid Service Center 16.7 18.5 8.7

Private lawyer 3.3 9 2.7

NGO 0.9 5.6

Court 2.6 8.2

Local Authority 0.8

I don’t know 76.5 57.9 88.7

Evaluation of court performance

While assessing different aspects of court performance, respondents were very brief in regards

with this institution and gave higher than average points to all criterias on 5 point scale. The

higher points were given to different aspects of court performance from respondents residing in

Kakheti region, 5 point for nearly all criterias. Lower assessments are given to Samtskhe-

Javakheti courts, though the evaluations go lower than 3 points.

Table 8. Court evaluation

Criteria All regions

together

Kvemo

Kartli

Samtskhe

Javakheti

Kakheti

Average score

Court personnel is competent 3.84 3.95 3.54 4.26

Court personnel is ready to assist 3.83 3.96 3.53 4.17

Court personnel is polite/ nice to

citizens

3.93 4.20 3.45 4.27

Reliable judges 3.82 3.96 3.51 4.25

Judges are competent 3.85 3.95 3.56 4.32

Judges treat citizens with respect and

politeness

3.94 4.17 3.52 4.33

Judges speak clearly 3.80 3.94 3.46 4.29

Judges are impartial 3.78 3.95 3.41 4.23

Court hearings are conducted on time 3.89 3.97 3.72 4.21

Time frame of hearing cases is

reasonable

3.84 3.99 3.58 4.23

Necessary information is provided on

duly manner

3.86 3.98 3.62 4.25

Court decisions are distributed on time 3.83 3.98 3.55 4.28

Court performance is transparent 3.82 3.94 3.51 4.32

Court system is reliable 3.82 3.91 3.53 4.32

Information provided by courts is

understandable/clear

3.87 3.94 3.63 4.33

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Court decisions are well grounded 3.79 3.91 3.57 4.22

Court notifications are clear 3.85 3.92 3.59 4.42

Courts are well organized 3.86 3.94 3.62 4.35

Information field

More than third of the respondents 37,5% don’t watch central television channels at all. In

Samtskhe-Javakheti 63,3% doesn’t watch central television channels, Kvemo Kartli - 22%, in

Kakheti - 12%. Among those who watch, 69,4% watch Rustavi 2, 65% - Imedi TV, GPB - 46,7%.

Diagram 1. Which TV channels watch non Georgian ethnic population of Georgia – division

according to those who watch central TV channels

20% of respondents listen to radio, 9% reads newspapers and magazines. From listed radio

stations Muz Radio and NOR are leaders, as from newspapers “Vrastan” and “Bolnisi”.

As for the internet websites, 52% of respondents don’t use internet, but according to internet

users social network and email websites are the most popular.

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Diagram 2. Popular websites – division according to information provided by internet users

Address:

CSO “CiDA”

Georgia, Rustavi 3700, 9/1 Firosmani str.

Tel.: +995 0 341 25 88 24

Tel./Fax:: +955 0 341 24 24 34

Email: pr@cida.ge

Web: www.cida.ge

1.1%

1.1%

1.4%

2.4%

5.1%

14.6%

15.1%

16.8%

54.6%

60.3%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

ipn.ge

vesti.ru

twitter.com

youtube.com

vk.com

google.com

mail.ru

gmail.com

facebook.co…

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