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GYLA says legislation on IDPs needs improvements

Liberali reports that the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA) presented the report on the rights of IDPs on relevant accommodation on April 3rd. The report introduced the legal analysis and trends of judiciary practice and whether the state follows its obligation and how relevant is the legislation.

GYLA reports that out of 270, 000 IDPs living in Georgia only 83, 559 have received accommodations, while 12, 239 receive financial assistance. The state has taken responsibility of them and provided them with flats. However, a great number of IDPs still remain homeless.

The report says the court does not well define the legal norms, state strategy and action plan in reference to IDPs and did not relevantly estimate the issue of a person’s individual freedom and protection.

According to the report it is necessary to match the domestic legislation with international standards.

The report tells a story of one IDP who has experienced a difficult psychological state due to displacement thus received the status of a person with disability. This person who had lived in Tbilisi was later moved to the region during the United National Movement (UNM) leadership. According to GYLA this person was worried that his place of living did not match with the standards and the state did not consider his interest when re-sheltering him.

GYLA thinks this is not a human attitude and addressed the Strasbourg court to learn the case. According to GYLA, the guarantees in the domestic legislation should protect IDPs from ungrounded eviction. Moreover, forceful eviction by police does not match with the international standards.

To improve the mechanisms, GYLA recommends the reflection of all the criteria for relevant accommodation in the normative acts considering the interests of IDPs during re-sheltering.