Nino Lomjaria addressed the Minister of Justice Tea Tsulukiani at the session of the Human Rights Committee and told her that it is up to the Public Defender where to go and who to meet and this is not the prerogative of the Minister of Justice.

“It is not up to the Minister what the Ombudsman must do. It is up to the Public Defender where to go and who to meet. I hail your interest in my work, though, I will tell you that the National Preventive Mechanism has at least ten years of work experience in the direction of prisons, while the Public Defender has working in the same direction for about 20 years and we know better than you, when the Ombudsman should enter a facility and when not. This has its purpose, and if you wish, we can brief you on our methodology in a non-public format. In any case, it is not up to the Minister when and what the Public Defender should do. The important thing is that we have competent findings”, - concluded the Ombudsman.