What counts as unauthorised removal of the fertile soil layer
The fertile layer is the upper, humus-rich horizon of the soil — the part that supports vegetation and that takes decades to rebuild naturally. That is why the Administrative Offences Code of Georgia deals with its removal and displacement in a separate provision. Article 51² does not prohibit earthworks as such. It penalises removing and moving the fertile soil layer where that work is not connected with measures permitted in the established manner. The decisive question is therefore a single one: did the work you carried out fall within the scope of a permitted measure?
In practice the article is most often applied to levelling a plot, excavating foundations, laying a road or utility line, extracting soil, hauling it elsewhere and stockpiling it. Liability can attach either to the holder of the land, on whose instruction the work was carried out, or to the person who physically performed it — the owner of the machinery, or a contractor. So if a protocol has been drawn up against you, the first thing to check is who exactly is named in it as the offender, and what factual role is being attributed to you. A case that looks hopeless on the face of the sanction often turns on that single line of the document.
What Article 51² actually provides
The provision combines two elements — removal of the fertile soil layer and its displacement — and ties them to one condition: the act must not be connected with measures permitted in the established manner. The sanction is single and fixed: a fine of 1,750 lari.
- The article sets no lower and upper limit — the amount is the same in every case;
- It does not lay down a separate, higher amount for a repeated act;
- The figure does not scale with the area or the volume of the layer removed.
That apparently technical detail matters a great deal in practice. Because the amount is fixed, an argument about proportionality has nowhere to go, and the dispute normally moves instead to the classification of the act itself: was it in fact the fertile layer that was removed, was it displaced, and above all was there a permit or other document that turns the work into a measure permitted in the established manner? The consolidated text of the article records an amendment made by Law No. 2196 of 20 April 2018.