Communicated on 1 December 2014

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 61783/11 Merab TCHIKASHVILI and others against Georgia lodged on 24 September 2011

STATEMENT OF FACTS

1. A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix . They are all Georgian nationals, represented before the Court by Ms N. Katsitadze , a lawyer practising in Tbilisi.

2. The facts of the cases, as submitted by the m , may be summarised as follows.

3. All three applicants were arrested by the police at around 4 p.m. on 25 March 2011 in the centre of Tbilisi, nearby the Ministry of the Custodial Institutions, during a peaceful demonstration. That demonstration had been planned by a limited number of young opposition activists, including the applicants, who wished to denounce publicly the alleged systemic ill ‑ treatment of prisoners in Georgia.

4. Later in the evening of the same day, at around 8.00 p.m., the arrested applicants were tried by the Tbilisi City Court. After having heard the statements from the applicants, who were assisted by three qualified lawyers of their choice, the police officers who had effectuated the applicants ’ arrest, as well as a number of independent witnesses who had been summoned by the applicants ’ lawyers, the court found , by its decision of 26 March 2011, all three applicants guilty, under Article 173 of the Code of Administrative Offence s , of the administrative offence of disobedience with police officers ’ lawful orders. In particular, the impugned actions consisted, according to the court ’ s findings, in the applicants refusing to obey by the patrol police officers ’ orders to desist from artificially creating impediments to the automobile traffic during the demonstration in question . The first and third applicants were sentenced to twenty days of administrative detention, whilst the second one was sentenced to ten days of detention.

5. The applicants ’ lawyers ’ a ppeals against their clients ’ conviction were rejected as inadmissible for a procedural reason by the Tbilisi Court of Appeals on 29 March 2011.

6. The applicant s spent their detention terms in short remand prison no. 2 of the Ministry of the Interior. According to the case file, whilst the applicants addressed a complaint about poor conditions of their detention to the governor of the prison on 30 March 2011, the governor failed to reply, and the applicants never lodged a further complaint to a court under the relevant provisions of the Prison Code.

COMPLAINTS

7. The applicants complain under Articl es 10 and 11 of the Convention that their arrest by the police and subsequent imposition of the administrative detention was arbitrary , disproportionate and represented a retribution for the organisation of the demonstration on 29 March 2011.

Q UESTION TO THE PARTIES

In the light of the fact that the applicants were arrest ed by the police on 25 March 2011 for their participation in a peaceful demonstration, as well as their subsequent conviction for the administrative offence of disobedience of police orders, and assuming that the applicants exhausted all available domestic remedies in this respect, ha s there been a violation of the applicants ’ rights to freedom of expression and/or freedom of peaceful assembly, contrary to Articles 10 and 11 of the Convention?

Appendix