Challenging gender-based violence in Georgia

In Georgia, violence against women and girls is often rooted in ‘traditional’ attitudes. These attitudes extend to the police and criminal justice system. The result has been underreporting, a failure to protect women when they do come forward, a failure to investigate leading to a climate of impunity, and a failure to consider the role of discrimination in perpetuating this vicious circle.

The cases

Since 2006, we have been working with Georgian partners to challenge systemic discrimination through strategic litigation.

We have achieved five landmark judgments – the only five judgments against Georgia concerning gender-based violence (GBV) – at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the UN committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

These cases concerned:

• the prolonged physical, sexual and psychological violence suffered by a woman and her daughter at the hands of the woman’s ex-husband, her daughter’s father
• the presumed suicide of a woman following extreme ‘honour’-based violence
• the murder of a woman by her ex-husband following a prolonged period of domestic violence
• the murder of a woman by her former partner, a serving police officer
• the presumed suicide of a woman following multiple reports to police of her partner’s violent behaviour over four years

What this litigation achieved

CEDAW’s decision in the first of these cases resulted in Georgia establishing a ground-breaking mechanism for compensating the victims of cases brought before UN treaty bodies. Heeding CEDAW’s decision, Georgia also ratified the Istanbul Convention in 2017, initiating a process of domestic legal reform to address GBV and discrimination.

In the second of these cases, CEDAW condemned the climate of impunity in Georgia which led to ‘the entrenchment of a culture of acceptance’ of GBV in some communities. It underlined the need for states to recognise their particular responsibilities in marginalised communities. The family of the victim received an unprecedented apology from the Georgian authorities. The domestic investigation was reopened and five men were imprisoned for their involvement in the woman’s beating.

Our third case resulted in the first femicide judgment against Georgia, and the first judgment in which the ECtHR had recognised systemic failures and role of gender-based discrimination in both the Georgian authorities’ failure to protect the victim and its failure to adequately investigate her killing. The ECtHR emphasised the state’s obligations to victims of GBV, including the need to inform them of their rights and the options available to prevent a recurrence of the violence they had suffered.

The judgment in our fourth case was the first time the ECtHR had found that the domestic courts should have considered the role of gender bias and discrimination. It was also the first case in which the ECtHR explicitly recognized that violence is committed against victims of domestic violence merely because they are women. The ECtHR recognised the increased responsibility of states in cases where GBV is perpetrated by law enforcement officers.

The judgment in our fifth case extended the need to consider the role of discrimination to civil claims for damages.

Taken together, these five cases significantly advanced the case law of the ECtHR and CEDAW, clearly establishing domestic violence as GBV, and rooted in discrimination.