The dissolution of the Soviet Union left many former republics struggling to establish a viable, trustworthy legal infrastructure. From 1991 up until 1997, the Soviet model continued to govern Georgian society. During this time, many citizens still did not trust the Georgian government to protect their rights and solidify their safety.

Legal texts in the library of the Georgian Young Lawyers Association./ Photo by Roshan Nebhrajani

In 1997, legal scholar Lado Chanturia helped translate, and adapt aspects of the German civil code into Georgian script. The state parliamentary committee weaved this code into the legal infrastructure, and began to slowly reform other limbs of the Georgian legal system. In 1999, the president of Georgia signed the criminal code into legislation, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

In order to bolster citizens’ trust in the reliability of the law, the Georgian parliament has been revising and reforming the Civil and Criminal codes since their respective initial inceptions.

With a thriving NGO sector that works to both recognize and address inadequacies of the evolving legal infrastructure, Georgian legislation is in a stage of constant flux. Lawyers, journalists and political activists work hard to reveal the cracks in legislation that cause Georgian citizens to stumble and fall.

This is where JusticeMaker Nana Chapidze begins construction. With her project, she will prepare the cement that judges, police and lawmakers can use to seal the broken path of juvenile justice.

Within the current system, both the Georgian Civil and Criminal codes recognize the differences between criminal responsibilities of juveniles and adults. But that’s all. There is no tangible structure that educates, protects and rehabilitates juvenile offenders. There are no police who specialize in dealing with juvenile offenders.

“While some judges are trained in juvenile cases, they review adult cases also,” Chapidze said.

As a result, judges often asses cases on one standard, giving little consideration to age, socioeconomic status or a countless array of other factors that may influence an offender’s predisposition to commit a crime.

Court hearings are mass-produced, with each ruling resembling a photocopy of the one prior. Court monitoring reports conducted by the project’s legal aid students revealed stark similarities in rulings between very dissimilar cases. This superficial form of justice causes more harm than good. It evades the root of the problem and disables the rehabilitation process.

Prior to being sentenced, juvenile offenders must remain in an adult pretrial detention facility from anywhere between two and nine months while waiting for judgment. Once sentenced, offenders are sent to the only strictly juvenile prison in the entire country.  After serving their time, there are virtually no rehabilitation programs aimed at reintegration.

Essentially, “the problem with the juvenile justice system is that there is none,” Chapidze said.

Not yet at least.

In the Bondoc peninsula, where the municipalities of San Andres and San Narciso meet, it is easy to lose oneself in the serene scenery of the rolling hills filled with coconut trees. However, the lush greenery hides the turmoil within, as a bevy of farmers find themselves in a deadly struggle against an unbending landlord and a judicial system entrenched in corruption. 

On a recent visit to the Bondoc region, Renato Heliran, a farmer and leader of the movement for agrarian reform in the San Narciso municipality, along with two other farmers, Mr. Bayani and Mr. Winnifrido, explained the struggle which they and other farmers have enduref in order to claim the land issued to them by the government under the land redistribution program.

“The CARP [Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program] was instituted in 1988 but we only found out about it around ‘98, ten years later.” states Renato. The huge lapse in time between the formation of the law and its actual institution is only one aspect of a failing justice system when it comes to land redistribution. In 2003, the farmers began a legal battle to reclaim their land. They also refused to give shares of their coconut harvest to the landlord, Mr Reyes.  Yet their refusal to give shares of their coconut harvest to the landlord has resulted in numerous criminal suits against each farmer for qualified theft of coconuts.

 Above: Mr. Bayani and Mr. Winnifrido, two farmers from San Narciso municipality

“One afternoon, I was working in the fields when they came to arrest me for stealing coconuts” explains Bayani.  Like Bayani, many other farmers were arrested for several months before they were bailed out by the Agrarian Reform coalition.

Others, like Winnifrido, haven’t been arrested but face arrest warrants. “There is still a warrant for my arrest. So, there is always a chance that the military will come to arrest me. Mostly, I am in hiding so I keep my head down while in town and I keep quiet.”  explains Winnifrido.  Unfortunately, even after the discovery that the land they are claiming is public land, the farmers still have ongoing cases and arrest warrants.

In a month’s time, the farmers have a hearing in court to seek dismissal of all charges. While the struggle for their only source of income still looms on the horizon, the farmers remain hopeful that they will, one day, be able to own the land which their families have tilled for generations.

   Above: Renato’s son does his homework

Above: Farmer from San Andreas municipality

Above: Benido Mahilan, farmer leader from San Andreas municipality

Photos by Ayda Wondemu

In between working for five different Georgian legal justice NGOs, spearheading international grant projects and translating various legal documents, it’s a wonder that JusticeMaker Nana Chapidze has any time for herself.

Chapidze discusses project implementation at the GYLA office / Photo by Roshan Nebhrajani

Born and raised in Kutaisi, Georgia, Chapidze has always been deeply connected to community development projects. As a law student, she became a legal aid assistant at the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA), an NGO that works to resolve the endless legal issues plaguing the post-Soviet republic. During this time, she worked to monitor the city’s human rights issues, most predominantly the ongoing presence of internally displaced people. She also held interactive training seminars for law students, hoping to strengthen both their and her own developing legal education.

Upon graduating from the well-respected Kutaisi University of Law and Economics in 2006, Chapidze became one of the five GYLA Kutaisi branch board members. As a board member she “participates in the decision-making process and organizes events and helps to set the priorities of GYLA’s activities.”

Chapidze discusses GYLA’s aims with another documentary journalist / Photo by Roshan Nebhrajani

Through GYLA, Chapidze has worked for Foundation Sukhumi, an NGO that works to bolster the rights of internally displaced people of the Sukhumi region. Additionally, Chapidze actively works for four other NGOs - The Kutaisi Information Center, The Imeriti Regional Center for Training and Consultations, Article 42 of the Constitution and The Human Rights Center. Among many other tasks, she helps these NGOs prepare applications for citizens, organizes initiatives for local self-government and teaches citizens about their legal rights.

As a JusticeMaker, Chapize has just kickstarted yet another human rights initiative. With funds and consultation from IBJ, Chapize hopes to reform Georgia’s juvenile justice system, ensuring that the Georgian youth receive a fair and objective trial, preventing the ruling of “adult time for adult crime.”

You can read more about her project here.

With this new project and the ongoing need to fulfill her endless responsibilities to other NGOs, “in this last year, I’ve had no free time,” Chapidze jokes.

Legal reference books in GYLA’s library / Photo by Roshan Nebhrajani

Listen to Nana summarize her project in her own words.

While time for recreational activities is few and far in between, in the ephemeral moments she spends on herself, Chapidze likes to listen to soft rock and classical music, go on picnics to the countryside with friends and read books by Ernest Hemingway , Herman Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Georgian writers such as Goderdzi Chockeli, Galaktion Tabidze. Her favorite books are Hesse’s Siddhartha and Hemingway’s Fiesta.

Above: Rosselynn Jae Garcia de la Cruz (Jae), 2010 JusticeMaker fellow and agrarian reform lawyer

It was about 3 in the afternoon when JusticeMakers Fellow and agrarian reform lawyer, Rosselynn Jae Garcia de la Cruz, and I arrived in Pangasinan, a province 170 km north of Manila for a farmers’ meeting. We have been on the road for most of the day, a commute that had us chasing buses under the scorching sun and straddling tricycles under the drizzling rain, all in the same day. For Jae, it was essential to make this trip to have an intimate conversation with the farmers who trust her to fight on their behalf. The fight for agrarian reform in the Philippines is a long and arduous one, comprising of many battles - some won, others lost- since Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) was first enacted in 1988.  The simple principle of agrarian reform is the redistribution of arable land ownership from large private landholdings to landless farmers. However, the execution of the reform has been far from simple. More than twenty years after the first law passed, countless farmers are still engaged in a David and Goliath battle against wealthy and politically connected landowners who use a multitude of tactics, ranging from the twisting of the legal system to violence through armed goons.

Above: Farmers from the Pangasinan region

Before the meeting begins, Jae explains, “Some cases can get very violent. It’s different in Pangasinan; it’s peaceful. Here, we are just dealing with corporate greed.” Although the kind of struggle brought by agrarian reform differ from case to case, they all share a common thread. There is a huge gap in equality between the farmers and the landowners. In a country where land is equated to power, the landless remain powerless. The farmers’ only champions are the minority of agrarian reform lawyers and the coalitions of agrarian reformers that fight for the farmers.

In Pangasinan, the farmers have been fighting to reclaim their land for a number of years. The landlord in question is a corporation, which has held on to the land by claiming it as industrial property rather than arable land, a baffling circumstance for the farmers, as they continue to work on it daily.  

Above: Farmers from the Pangasinan region during the meeting with Jae

 In 2003, with the help of an agrarian reform coalition, the farmers filed a suit with Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to redistribute the remaining unindustrialized land. Seven years after they began, their case is far from settled, with the corporation filing an appeal after each favorable decision towards the farmers. During the discussion, Jae goes over new information about a supposed sale of the land in contention. The farmers are worried that this will serve as yet another impediment. But Jae is positive, she states, “they won’t be able to go through with that sale, it’s illegal and we will file a suit against this supposed sale.”

The meeting goes on for a few hours with a somber conversation interspersed with some laughter. The farmers still retain a fighting spirit and when the discussion is over, they come up to Jae and thank her for her support and one farmer, Maria D. Serrano, even asks Jae to spend the night at her home. Jae politely declines as she has a meeting the next morning for another case. Indeed, this is only one of the fifteen agrarian reform cases that Jae is currently handling.

It is near midnight when the bus finally arrives in Manila. Jae is tired but pleased to have had a chance to speak with the farmers. While victories are infrequent and slow to achieve, Jae remains optimistic. On the way back to Manila, she confides  “the farmers, they are why I am doing this job. Because they’re so honest, so open, and it’s just not right that anyone would treat them in this manner.”

Pangasinan farmer, Maria D. Serrano

Photos by Ayda Wondemu