Forty-eight hours, counted from when
Article 281¹ of the Administrative Offences Code of Georgia sets one specific deadline: a decision of the district (city) court on administrative detention may be appealed within 48 hours of its issuance. The wording repays attention. The clock starts when the decision is issued — not when it is served on the person, not when they read it, and not when a lawyer enters the case. The practical consequence is that the 48 hours run while the person is already in detention and their contact with the outside world is limited. For that reason the counting of this period has to become somebody's explicit responsibility from the first hours, rather than something that is noticed once the file is finally reviewed.
The rule has a further consequence: what matters is not only which day the decision was issued but which hour. The first practical step is therefore to establish and write down the exact time of issuance, ideally from the copy of the decision itself. Until that time is known, nobody can say how much of the window is left, or whether it has already closed.
Who may lodge the appeal
The article names a precise set of persons, and that list is closed:
- the person on whom administrative detention was imposed;
- their advocate (legal representative);
- the body or official that drew up the administrative offence protocol.
Two things follow. First, the right of appeal is not the detained person's alone — the body that drew up the protocol also holds it, so an appeal in this category of case can come from either side. Second, a family member who is neither an advocate nor a legal representative does not appear on that list. In practice, the useful thing a relative can do is not to draft anything themselves but to make sure an advocate is engaged immediately, because that is the route the article actually provides.
Which court hears it
Article 281¹ also names the forum: the appeal goes to the Chamber of Administrative Cases of the Court of Appeal. The case therefore moves from the district (city) court to a specific chamber of the appellate court. Article 281¹ names that chamber and no other addressee, so identifying it correctly is part of using the route the article actually provides. Given how short the window is, the destination is worth settling before anything is drafted.
Alongside the destination, the manner of filing deserves the same early attention — how the complaint is physically submitted, and what will later evidence the time it was received. Within a window this short, a record of the moment of receipt carries as much weight as the arguments inside the document.
One appeal only
The article states expressly that the decision may be appealed once. That is a substantive restriction rather than a formality: there is no second attempt, so the complaint has to be complete the first time it is filed. It also means there is little sense in spending part of the window on informal enquiries in the hope that the matter resolves along the way. The single attempt should be reasoned, addressed to the correct chamber, and filed inside the period.
One appeal also means every argument has to be in the document at once. Filing something thin on the assumption that it can be supplemented later does not work on this timetable, because there is no practical room left for a supplement before the period expires.
What this means in practice
Article 281¹ fixes the deadline and the forum. It does not itself provide that lodging the complaint suspends the serving of the detention; whether enforcement is suspended in a given case is settled by other provisions of the Code rather than by this article. The practical consequence is simply that the complaint should be prepared as fast as it can be prepared properly. Nor does Article 281¹ say what a complaint must contain, or what may be argued in it — that too is governed by other provisions and depends on the case. What the article does settle is the frame the complaint has to fit: one attempt, made within 48 hours of issuance, by one of the three persons it names, and addressed to the Chamber of Administrative Cases of the Court of Appeal. Each of those four elements is established from documents that exist in the first hours — the decision and the time it was issued, the protocol and the body that drew it up, and the document confirming the advocate's authority — which is why the early gathering of paperwork matters more here than in slower proceedings.
What to have ready immediately
The items below are the minimum without which preparing a complaint on this timetable is realistically difficult.
- the decision on administrative detention, and the exact time it was issued;
- the administrative offence protocol and the apprehension paperwork;
- the evidence in the file and the details of any witnesses;
- the document confirming the advocate's authority to act;
- anything relevant to how severe the penalty is in the circumstances.