What Article 99 penalises
Materials brought into the country from abroad do not enter circulation the moment they cross the border: they are first meant to undergo quarantine inspection and appropriate treatment. Article 99 of the Code of Administrative Offences penalises removing such materials from a border point without those two procedures having been carried out. The emphasis falls on the removal itself — the offence is complete when the material leaves the point without having been inspected and treated.
The article lists the places it has in mind — a border seaport (berth), a railway station, a bus terminal (bus station), an airport, and any other border point. That last phrase keeps the list open, so a crossing that is not named individually can still fall within the article's reach.
Two requirements that both have to be met
The wording of the article names two procedures — quarantine inspection and appropriate treatment — and finds an offence where the material was removed without both of them having been carried out. The two requirements do not substitute for one another, and where the file evidences only one, that circumstance has to be assessed on its own rather than taken automatically as proving or as ruling out the offence.
The article also does not define what "appropriate treatment" consists of for any particular material, nor who carries it out or how its performance is recorded. Those details sit outside the provision, which means that in a case they have to be evidenced by documents rather than by general assertion.
The sanction the law sets
Article 99 splits the sanction between two categories of person and, in each case, sets a ceiling rather than a fixed sum.
- citizens — a fine of up to five minimum amounts of labour remuneration;
- officials — a fine of up to ten minimum amounts of labour remuneration.
The words "up to" carry real weight here. The law fixes a maximum, not a set figure, so the amount actually imposed is arrived at somewhere within that ceiling. The article itself does not express the minimum amount of labour remuneration in lari; that value cannot be read out of the provision and has to be established separately by whoever works on the case.
The article sets no lower limit for either category. All it states is the figure the fine must not exceed.
Why the two categories differ
The ceiling for an official is twice the ceiling for a citizen — ten minimum amounts instead of five. That makes one of the first questions in any such case a question of status: were you acting as a private person or as an official? The classification decides which of the two ceilings applies, and therefore the entire range within which a fine can be set.
The article does not define who counts as an official for the purposes of this particular offence, and it does not specify which materials are subject to quarantine inspection. Both questions sit outside the text of the provision and must be settled from the material in the case file rather than assumed one way or the other.
How a case of this kind unfolds
Factual disputes in this category tend to circle three questions: was the material in fact brought in from a foreign country, did it undergo quarantine inspection and appropriate treatment, and was it removed from the border point. If any one of those elements is not established, the composition of the offence is not complete, and that is usually where a defence begins.
A fourth question often follows: who was responsible for the removal. The owner of the material, the carrier and the person who allowed the movement are not automatically in the same position. The answer determines who the fine is addressed to and, where an official is involved, which ceiling applies.
Timing matters too. The article ties the offence to the moment of removal, so the file should record precisely when the material left the point and what the position was, at that moment, as regards inspection and treatment.
What you can do about it
If proceedings under Article 99 are running against you, it helps to gather from the outset the documents that show how the material moved and what was done to it. A lawyer is not in a position to promise a result. What a lawyer does is test whether every element of the article is genuinely made out and whether your status has been classified correctly — that classification alone doubles or halves the applicable ceiling.
- the protocol and the case file — from which point, and when, the removal is said to have taken place;
- import documents and documents showing the origin of the material;
- any record or certificate of quarantine inspection and treatment;
- documents establishing your status — private citizen or official.
Article 99 does not name the body that hears such a case, and it does not set an appeal deadline. Both points have to be established from other provisions of the Code and from the document handed to you. On Legal.ge you can find a lawyer who will carry out that check and build a position from what the file actually shows.