Georgia's Azerbaijanis to get legal advice in native language
By Sabina Idayatova
Georgia's Azerbaijanis will be able to get legal advice in their
native language with the opening of a new center in the neighboring
country.
The consultation center for legal advice opened in the Marneuli region of Georgia, which is densely populated by Azerbaijanis, the country's largest ethnic minority, whose representatives are settled mostly in rural areas.
More than 130,000 residents of the Marneuli municipality will receive free legal assistance at the new consultation center.
Georgian Minister of Corrections and Legal Assistance Sozar Subari and the head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Georgia Jamie McGoldrick attended the opening ceremony and met with the Consultation Center staff and local residents.
According to Subari, the consultations will be provided in the Azerbaijani language but the Azerbaijanis will be able to apply to the head of the center both in Georgian and Azerbaijani.
The center will provide legal advice to the residents of Marneuli and the nearby villages, assist in drafting legal documents, and whenever needed will refer cases to the Legal Aid Bureau in the city of Rustavi.
The Marneuli center, the sixteenth legal aid office in Georgia, opened with the support of the UN Development Programme.
Legal assistance services are an important component of judicial reform in Georgia making the justice system more accessible to all Georgians including the poor, those displaced by conflict or ethnic minorities.
Since Georgia gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, some Azerbaijanis and members of other minorities are said to have faced social disintegration and underrepresentation in the country's legislative, executive and judicial branches of power, mainly due to the language barrier. Emigration and the feeling of alienation have subsided as compared to the early 1990s.
According to the 2008 UN Association of Georgia report, 98 percent of Azerbaijanis surveyed in Kvemo Kartli considered Georgia their homeland; 96 percent acknowledged that the problems they face are common to citizens countrywide and around 90 percent linked their future with Georgia.
The language barrier remains a major issue for Georgia's Azerbaijani population. The government has launched various programs and projects in order to help Azerbaijanis integrate into the political life of the country.