FIFTH SECTION
CASE OF MAISAIA v. GEORGIA
(Application no. 75969/14)
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
7 May 2024
 
 
 
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Maisaia v. Georgia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Carlo Ranzoni, President,
 Lado Chanturia,
 María Elósegui, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 75969/14) against Georgia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 26 November 2014 by a Georgian national, Mr Vakhtang Maisaia (“the applicant”), who was born in 1972, lives in Tbilisi and was represented by Ms N. Londaridze and Ms T. Avaliani, lawyers practising in Georgia;
the decision to give notice of the complaints under Article 3 of the Convention to the Georgian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr B. Dzamashvili, of the Ministry of Justice, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;
the parties’ observations;
the decision to reject the Government’s objection to examination of the application by a Committee;
Having deliberated in private on 4 April 2024,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case mainly concerns, under Article 3 of the Convention, the applicant’s alleged ill-treatment in prison, which purportedly formed part of a large-scale and systematic ill-treatment of prisoners at the material time, and the competent domestic authorities’ failure to conduct an effective investigation into his allegations. 2. On 5 May 2009 the applicant was arrested and placed in police custody on suspicion of having committed espionage, an offence of which he was subsequently convicted. 3. On 8 May 2009 the applicant was transferred from police custody to Tbilisi prison no. 8 (“the Gldani prison”). As part of his admission procedure to Gldani Prison, a doctor examined him and noted in his medical file that he had no injuries at the time of his admission and was in a good state of health, not suffering from any medical condition. 4. On 25 August 2010 the Investigation Unit of the Ministry of Prisons opened, in reply to the applicant’s complaint of the same day, a criminal investigation into ill-treatment to which the applicant had allegedly been subjected, in the hands of prison guards, on the previous day, 24 August, in Gldani Prison. A medical examination of the applicant was immediately commissioned, the results of which established the existence of marks of ill‑treatment (multiple bruises and lesions) on his face and body. The investigators also questioned a number of witnesses – cellmates of the applicant as well as prison guards of Gldani prison. Whilst one of the cellmates confirmed that the applicant had been beaten up by prison guards, the other questioned witnesses stated that the applicant had inflicted those injuries to himself by hitting his head and body against the wall and the window bar in his cell. 5. When questioned by the investigators on 25 August 2010, the applicant stated that, apart from the incident of 24 August 2010, he had been subjected to ill-treatment in Gldani prison on a regular basis, and that those systematic acts of physical and psychological abuse had lasted in the period between 8 May and 23 June 2009. He also gave the names of the abusers to the investigators and provided further details about the circumstances in which his ill-treatment had occurred on 24 August 2010. 6. On 13 September 2010, in a special statement issued about the applicant’s case, the World Organisation Against Torture (an international human rights observer based in Geneva, Switzerland), expressed its concerns about the applicant’s safety in prison. The statement emphasised that, based on the information received from the applicant’s family, after having reported his ill-treatment in Gldani prison (see the preceding paragraph), he started receiving death threats from prison guards. 7. Between 22 September 2010 and May 2012, the applicant repeatedly enquired (at least on four occasions) about the progress in the criminal investigation with both the Ministry of Prisons and the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office (“the CPPO”). Relying further on the medical opinion confirming the existence of marks of ill-treatment (see paragraph 4 above), he repeatedly requested to be granted the status of aggrieved party. His letters were either left unanswered or the authorities would advise him that the investigation was still ongoing. 8. In September 2012 a footage of repeated acts of ill-treatment of inmates at different prison establishments, including and in particular Gldani Prison, was disseminated in the Georgian media (“the prison scandal”). 9. On 13 January 2013 the applicant was released from prison based on an amnesty. 10. Between February 2013 and October 2014, the applicant filed repeated enquires (at least on six occasions) with the CPPO about the progress in the investigation, if any, asking to be granted the status of an aggrieved party. Those repeated enquiries were either left unanswered, or the prosecution authorities would advise the applicant about the need to wait for certain investigative measures to be completed. 11. According to the information available in the case file, the criminal investigation into the applicant’s ill-treatment in Gldani prison is currently still ongoing, but no other details about its progress are known.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 3
Outcome: violation