The Council of Europe Office in Georgia organised a training for the representatives of the Tbilisi City Court on European Court of Human Rights standards and case law on discrimination, hate crimes and hate speech including relevant data collection.
The training module covered topics such as the responsibility and importance of data collection on discrimination cases, grounds of discrimination, hate speech and freedom of expression, the scope of the negative and positive obligation of the state based on the case law of the Court and the main indicators of discrimination.
Through the interactive sessions the participants were able to dive deep into each of the above-described topics and to discuss the relevant cases in their practice. In addition, the training aimed at equipping the assistant judges with the knowledge and building capacity to be able to incorporate relevant standards of the European Court of Human Rights in their practice and in court decision projects and also to further refine the structure and process of data collection on hate crimes.
The cooperation of the Council of Europe with the court system under equality and non-discrimination initiatives counts similar trainings to the court system in previous years. In 2021, over 70 assistant judges were trained on the importance of data collection on hate crimes.
Since September 2018, the Council of Europe Office in Georgia has been assisting stakeholders to improve hate crime data collection methodology. As a result of an inclusive process, recommendations were developed regarding the new data collection methodology, specific guidelines and data collection templates on hate crime, discrimination and hate speech in line with European Commission against Racism and Intolerance’s recommendations and current needs. In 2020 a memorandum of cooperation on the collection of data on hate crime was signed between the Supreme Court, the Office of the General Prosecutor, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the National Statistics Office of Georgia. Various trainings and working meetings were organised by the Council of Europe to support the process.
This activity is implemented in the framework of the Project “Promoting the Effective Protection of Equality and Non-Discrimination in Georgia”. The Project is funded through the Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia 2020-2023.
