The Regime of Bail and Its Conditions
Bail is one of the preventive measures under Georgian criminal procedure legislation. Its essence is simple: the accused, or another person on his behalf, deposits a monetary sum into the deposit account of the National Bureau of Enforcement under a written undertaking given to the court, or provides real estate, thereby securing the proper conduct of the accused and his timely appearance before the investigator, prosecutor and court. A violation of the conditions of bail carries serious consequences, which do not amount to automatic imprisonment but create substantial risk.
A preventive measure is applied in order to prevent the accused from evading appearance in court, to prevent his further criminal activity and to secure the execution of the verdict. The ground for application is a substantiated suspicion that the accused will hide, will fail to appear in court, will destroy information significant for the case or will commit a new crime. Notably, imprisonment or another measure may not be applied where the aims can be achieved through a less severe measure — a proportionality principle the defence should always invoke. When moving for a measure, the prosecutor must substantiate both the appropriateness of the requested measure and the inexpediency of a less severe one.