The Constitutional Court of Georgia declared the normative content of the paragraph 4 of Article 306 of the Code of Criminal Procedures of Georgia unconstitutional.

The Constitutional Court of Georgia declared the normative content of the paragraph 4 of Article 306 of the Code of Criminal Procedures of Georgia unconstitutional. The Paragraph excludes possibility of the Court of Cassation to broad the scope of the appeal and discharge a person from the criminal liability in the case when the law abolishes the criminality of the act after the act is committed.

Opinion of the Association of Law Firms of Georgia was similar to the Constitutional Court’s ruling.

ALFG argued that the norms in question serve to protect the adversarial principle and the essence of this principle is to protect the rights of the defendant by way of equalization of the parties. In their written consideration, ALFG concludes that to broad the scope of the appeal in favor of the prosecution is the breach of the adversarial principle and equality of the parties, because the defendant will not be allowed to prepare the defense properly. To do the same to protect the constitutional rights of the defendant will not violate the adversarial principle, but it will guarantee the defendants rights to a far trial. Thus, the adversarial principle, defined by the paragraph 3 of Article 85 of the Constitution of Georgia should not be interpreted in the violation of other constitutional rights of the defendant and should not preclude the court’s initiative to protect the other constitutional guarantees.