Supreme Court of Georgia

Supreme Court of Georgia made an important explanation

Published: 12/20/2011

The Chamber of Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of Georgia made an important explanation aiming at unambiguously defining the signs of theft of an ID Card or other important ID documents under the law.

In line with the facts established by the court of original jurisdiction and court of appeal, O.M. broke the boot wind screen of a car of model “Kia sportage” owned by a citizen T.M. parked in the street, scratched the surface of the rear window and painting at the right rear handle and thus, damaged them, pulled out the support of the rear number plate, got into the car and got possession of 6 CD discs of a record-player, salary plastic cards of the Savings Bank, ProCredit Bank and a discount plastic card of Wissol gas-station by stealth with the purpose to appropriate them. In addition, the accused got possession of the victim’s ID Card of a Georgian citizen. In addition, it is an undoubtedly established fact that when taking the possession of the items in question, the accused acted in the dark and threw all the items he could find in the car into his bag one after another.

The Chamber of Cassation shared the position of the lower courts about sentencing O.M. for theft and damaging other’s items; however, the Chamber of Cessation considered the legal judgment of the Court of Appeal about the fact of lawless possession of an ID Card of a citizen of Georgia wrong.

The Chamber explained that for committing the crime such as the theft of an ID Card or any other important personal documents, it is necessary that a person acts with a direct intention what should be based on the proper motif and aim of taking the possession of someone’s documents. As for the facts of the case, they undoubtedly prove that the accused did not have an intention or aim to steal the ID documents.

By taking into consideration the above said circumstances, the Chamber of Cassation rejected the criminal case according to the Article 363, part 2 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, due to the absence of an action envisaged by the Criminal law.