Georgia’s first-ever jury trial is scheduled to commence soon in Tbilisi. The reform is meant to increase sagging public confidence in the country’s judicial system, but it also may force Georgians to confront some socially sensitive questions.

A 12-person jury will sit in judgment at an aggravated homicide trial set to begin on November 10. The case, in which the victim was murdered during a burglary, occurred back in 2004. Authorities completed their investigation only earlier this year.

Georgia is taking a go-slow approach on trials by jury. During an introductory phase, cases eligible to be decided by juries are limited solely to those dealing with charges of aggravated and attempted aggravated homicide, along with rape. The relative dearth of such cases will not “overwhelm the [judicial] system” as the country adapts to jury trials, said David DeVillers, a legal advisor at the US Embassy, who is advising the Georgian government on incorporating juries into the legal process. During the first nine months of 2011, Georgian law-enforcement authorities recorded 58 rape cases and 86 aggravated murders for the entire country. Theft remains number one crime with 8,367 reported cases.

If all works according to plan, the possibility of having one’s peers sit in judgment of an alleged criminal misdeed will bolster Georgians’ faith in the legal system. Currently, many Georgians view the courts as an adjunct of executive authority. In addition, few Georgians expect to receive a fair trial if they are ever hauled before a court, given that the conviction rate runs at 99 percent, according to the watchdog organization Transparency International Georgia.

While experts expect murder trials to be relatively straight-forward proceedings for novice jurors, rape cases may raise unanticipated quandaries. In Georgia’s patriarchal culture, reaching collective agreement among 12 jurors about how to define rape could turn out to be a daunting task, gender studies experts say.

“In Georgian thinking, there is not even a clear definition of violence against women,” commented Tamar Tsopurashvili, an assistant professor of social sciences at Tbilisi State University. The female victim’s behavior and credibility are often called into question, meaning that prejudice can run strong against plaintiffs in rape cases, including among judges, she added.

“Women often are blamed for instigating such crimes by acting provocatively,” elaborated Mariam Gagoshashvili, a program coordinator at the Tbilisi-based Women’s Fund in Georgia, a grant-making group for organizations working on women’s issues. “This happens elsewhere, but in places like Georgia the ‘she-should-have-known-better attitude’ is more prevalent than in the West.”

To avoid being accused of having brought the violence on themselves, Georgian women often opt not to speak about a sexual assault, and rarely bring criminal charges. “Georgian culture pressures women not to publicize such crimes,” said Tsopurashvili. Encouraging an alleged rape victim “to speak about her trauma before a wider group of people,” such as 12 members of a jury, “may be harder,” she continued. “I could definitely see problems coming.”

Marine Chitashvili, the director of the Tbilisi-based Center for Social Sciences, believes that additional sensitivity training should be instituted for judges and potential jurors before a rape case is given to a jury. At present, public sensitivity on gender-related issues is generally low in Georgia, she argued. Tsopurashvili, meanwhile, asserted that “[r]apes are not always taken seriously” by most Georgian men.

“Jurors and judges should be very careful in hearing cases like this,” Chitashvili said. “They must understand and be sensitive toward the victim. And the main thing is to put traditional and cultural stereotypes aside.”
At this stage, no training on gender awareness has been provided for judges expected to preside at jury trials for rape, or for criminal attorneys.

As with other violent crimes, rape is a matter that, in Georgian culture, is sometimes handled on a personal level, involving the families of the victim and the alleged assailant. In the most extreme cases, family members of a sexual-violence victim may push to “resolve” the issue outside of court by pressing the alleged assailant to marry the victim to avoid public scandal, commented Women’s Fund in Georgia’s Gagoshashvili. “We have cases like this in the regions, especially in Samegrelo [in western Georgia],” she said. “And the victims face a double problem by being forced into an unwanted union.”

Georgia’s intricate, far-flung kinship networks have prompted some to question whether in such a small country (roughly 4.47 million people), jurors can be immune to outside pressures.

Jury-trial proponents counter that they can, via careful juror selection. But some legal analysts see the possibility of other factors influencing the determination of verdicts. “Georgians often tend to be on the defendant’s side and are critical of government mechanisms,” said Eka Khutsishvili, a lawyer at the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, expressing her personal opinion. “So, my concern is that we may face a situation where [after going] from a high rate of convictions, we will face high acquittal rates.”

This could particularly be a problem for victims of sexual violence, commented Tsopurashvili. “If it [trial by jury] is not going to make things worse, I doubt it is going to make it better, either,” she said.

The US embassy’s DeVillers acknowledged that similar concerns are raised in other countries, too, about jury trials for rape, but stressed the need to move forward. “At the end of the day,” he said, “you need to decide if you trust your society with this or not.”