What Article 134¹ regulates
Article 134¹ of the Code of Administrative Offences of Georgia governs the carrying out of construction and reconstruction works on roads, road structures, underground utilities and railway crossings. Such works inevitably reduce the capacity of the road and change the usual traffic regime; if they are not organised according to any rules, they create a direct danger both for vehicles and for pedestrians. This is why the legislature requires that such works be carried out only on the basis of a pre-agreed traffic management scheme, and treats a breach of this requirement as a separate administrative offence. The norm covers both the process of carrying out the works themselves and the placement of vehicles on the road while those works are under way.
When is an administrative offence committed
Under the first part of the article, an offence is committed when construction or reconstruction works on a road, a road structure, an underground utility or a railway crossing are carried out without an agreed traffic management scheme — including a temporary one — or in violation of the existing scheme. It is equally an offence to place a vehicle on the road during such works without such a scheme or in breach of it. A separate constituent element is the situation where a written instruction issued by an authorised person of the municipality on eliminating existing deficiencies is not complied with: the problem has been recorded, but the contractor does not remedy it. In other words, liability arises not only from starting work without any plan at all, but also from ignoring how the plan says the work must be organised.
With whom must the scheme be agreed
The scheme is to be agreed with the structural unit of the municipality's city hall determined by the municipal representative body, or with the natural or legal person authorised by that representative body, acting together with the relevant authorised body (agency). The article thus treats the scheme as the central instrument of safety at the worksite: it is the document on the basis of which every participant in traffic can foresee where the works zone lies and how to pass it safely. This means that organising traffic around a worksite is not merely the contractor's private affair: the document is coordinated at the municipal level, in cooperation with the agency that supervises the particular road or utility. The existence of a scheme protects against liability only if the works actually proceed in accordance with it — carrying them out in breach of the scheme is punishable in the same way as having no scheme at all.
The fine for a first violation
The act provided for by the first part of the article entails a fine of 2,000 GEL for a natural person and a fine of 5,000 GEL for a legal person. The different amounts reflect the fact that a legal person usually runs works at several sites simultaneously and has greater resources to satisfy road-safety requirements. If you manage a construction company, the risk of a fine should therefore be assessed on the basis of the amount provided for legal persons.
The fine for a repeated violation
Repeated commission of the act provided for by the first part of this article entails considerably stricter liability: a natural person is fined 5,000 GEL and a legal person 15,000 GEL. On repetition, the fine for a natural person therefore rises from 2,000 to 5,000 GEL, while the fine for a legal person grows threefold, from 5,000 to 15,000 GEL. This demonstrates the legislature's approach: once a violation has been recorded, a second breach of the same rules by the same person is assessed much more severely. For companies operating multiple sites, this makes systematic internal control over traffic management schemes not a formality but a matter of direct financial protection.
What to remember in practice
In practice, avoiding liability under this norm comes down to a few simple rules: obtain the appropriate scheme before starting the works; follow only the decisions set out in it; place vehicles on the road in accordance with the plan; and comply in good time with the written instructions of the municipality's authorised person. The procedure for administrative proceedings, the drawing up of the protocol and the questions of appeal are governed by other provisions of the Code, so in a concrete case they should be examined separately by a specialist. Keep a copy of the agreed scheme and of all instructions at the site: if a dispute arises, these documents are the primary evidence that the works were organised lawfully. It is equally useful to record the actual state of traffic organisation at the site, since in practice disputes often turn on what was really in place on the day of the inspection.
How Legal.ge can help you
The lawyers of Legal.ge will help you assess whether a case has been correctly qualified under this article, clarify the factual circumstances of the agreement and the violation of the scheme, and protect your interests in administrative proceedings. If a fine has already been imposed, we will verify the legality of its amount and of the way it was imposed. For a detailed consultation, contact us at Legal.ge.