The Council of Europe continues to provide support to Georgian national authorities in improving treatment of persons in detention and enhancing compliance of policing with the human rights standards. Steering Committee (SC) meetings of two Council of Europe projects “Human Rights Compliant Policing in Georgia” and “Enhancing Healthcare Provision in Georgia's Penitentiary System” were held on 11 and 12 October 2022 respectively.

Both SC meetings were dedicated to reviewing progress and adopting projects’ workplans for the upcoming 6-month period (October 2022 -March 2023). Both Project teams presented the main achievements of the projects made in past 6 months and introduced future planned activities to the SC members. The presentations were followed by discussions on the workplans content with the beneficiaries.

Within the police project the SC members agreed on the priority activities for the next period, with focus on working with juvenile offenders and victims, further support the development of the SIS’s capacity to investigate torture and ill-treatment, further strengthening NPM’s capacity in monitoring police actions and improving links between the mentioned authorities and CSOs. When it comes to the healthcare project, the participants discussed how to best optimize available project and institutional resources to meet priority needs in the areas of provision of mental healthcare and substance-abuse related treatment in the penitentiary system, including the important issue of addressing staff burnout.

As a result, the SC members under both projects reaffirmed their commitment to implementation of the planned activities and adopted the final versions of the workplans. The mentioned projects are funded by the Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia for 2020-2023.