The Parliament discussed for the I reading and adopted the Draft Law on Amnesty with 82 votes, introduced to the plenary session by the Chair of the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee, Rati Ionatamishvili.

As the reporter elucidated, the adoption of amnesty chases one certain and legible goal – leveling the number of prisoners with the European standard.

“Amnesty, by its essence, implies not a pardon but a human act conducted by the government. At the same time, it is imperative for us to ensure the harmonization of the Draft Law on Amnesty that we offer to our society with the criminal policy principles applied in the country”, - he stated.

Amnesty applies to the crimes stipulated under Article 66 of the Criminal Code committed before July 1, 2024. The Draft prescribes the forms of amnesty as follows: immediate release, reduction of the sentence by ½, ¼, and 1/6, and the reduction of a conditional sentence for the probationers by one year.

“By its scopes, the Draft Law on Amnesty, which we categorize as balanced amnesty, is quite impressive since it applies to 4 839 inmates and envisages immediate release for 1000 prisoners. The reduction of a sentence by 1/6 and a reduction of a conditional sentence for the probationers constitutes a significant novelty. Today, we have 22 000 probationers and the amnesty shall immediately apply to 7000, by which, I mean the reduction of a probationary detention term by one year”, - the reporter noted.

The Draft shall not apply to convicts for murder, sale of narcotic drugs, sexual crime, aggravated robbery, terrorism, corruption and official offenses, mob activities, conventional crimes and other grave and particularly grave crimes.

As underlined by the reporter, the Draft will remain under development in the Parliament to be further discussed for the II and III readings within the autumn plenary sessions.