Two different offences in one article
Article 155¹² of the Administrative Offences Code of Georgia regulates two situations that are quite different from one another. The first is producing tobacco where no tobacco production licence exists at all. The second is producing tobacco where a licence has been issued but its conditions are being breached. The two sit in one text, yet they carry different legal consequences and call for different lines of defence. If you produce tobacco or hold a licence, the first thing to look for in the protocol is which part of the article has been applied — part 1, part 2 or part 3.
The amounts the law sets
Article 155¹² contains three fixed amounts. They are clearly separated from one another and do not form a single continuous range.
- Producing tobacco without a tobacco production licence — a fine of 10,000 GEL;
- Producing without a licence by a person on whom an administrative penalty has already been imposed for an offence under part 1 or part 2 of the same article — a fine of 50,000 GEL;
- Producing tobacco in breach of the licence conditions — a fine of 5,000 GEL.
The increased figure of 50,000 GEL is written for one configuration only. It applies to production without a licence by a person who already carries a penalty imposed under part 1 or part 2. A repeat breach of licence conditions — that is, a repeat under part 3 — does not automatically produce 50,000 GEL; for that situation the article provides a different mechanism, described below. The article also sets no period during which the earlier penalty continues to "count": it refers simply to a person on whom an administrative penalty has been imposed, and says nothing further about timing.
Inspection without restriction
A note to the article states a separate rule about control: in order to detect an offence under this article, the body carrying out control is entitled to conduct an inspection at any time during the calendar year, without restriction. That has practical weight. It removes any argument that the number or the frequency of inspections in this field is capped, which is a submission that would otherwise be made almost automatically after a second or third visit in a single year. A position resting on inspection frequency alone is therefore weak within this article, and attention has to move to the facts recorded during the inspection itself.
When a breach of licence conditions is not remedied
The article separately describes what follows a penalty imposed under part 3. If the body carrying out control sends the licence holder a written notification about the breach of the licence conditions, and the holder does not eliminate that breach within the term set by the licence issuer, administrative liability is imposed on the holder under the procedure established by Article 36¹ of the Code. Three elements run in sequence here: first the penalty under part 3, then the written notification, then the failure to eliminate the breach within the term set by the licence issuer. Article 155¹² does not itself name any number of days — the term is set by the licence issuer, so the file has to show what term was fixed and how it was communicated to the holder. What Article 36¹ then provides is not recited in this article and has to be read separately.
What a position is built on
Since every amount is fixed, the dispute is not about the sum but about classification and facts. In practice the following questions arise.
- Whether the conduct was tobacco production in the sense the article uses;
- Which part of the article was applied — absence of a licence or breach of its conditions, which is the difference between 10,000 GEL and 5,000 GEL;
- Where 50,000 GEL is charged, whether the earlier penalty under part 1 or part 2 is evidenced, and whether the new conduct really is production without a licence;
- Where the case moves to Article 36¹, whether the sequence was observed — penalty, written notification, term, failure to remedy.
Each of these is an independent circumstance to check, and the answer emerges only from the file: Article 155¹² sets out no list of grounds of appeal and does not state what the decision must contain. The legislative note under the article records an amendment made by Law No 4383 of 19 July 2024; which wording applies to a particular charge turns on the date of the act, so that date is worth fixing precisely.
What to gather, and where a lawyer helps
Before a consultation, collect a copy of the protocol and the decision, the licence and its conditions, the inspection records, any written notification received from the body carrying out control, and every document showing the steps taken to eliminate the breach. Representation matters at two moments: during the inspection, so that the facts enter the file accurately, and after the decision, so that the materials can be tested against the specific part of the article that was applied. Article 155¹² lays down neither the procedure nor the time limit for challenging a decision; those follow from the general part of the Code and from the procedure stated in the decision itself. On Legal.ge you can find a lawyer who works on licensing and administrative offence matters and pass the file to them directly.