Workplace safety violations are punished in Georgia under the Criminal Code norm on violation of labor protection rules. The subject of this norm is special: a violation of safety technique or another labor protection rule must be committed by a person responsible for compliance with that rule. This means liability does not attach to every employee but to the one entrusted with ensuring the specific labor protection requirements — and drawing the boundaries of that responsibility is one of the central issues of the defense.
Punishment where injury is caused
The violation may appear in the neglect of technical, sanitary, fire or other specific requirements, yet criminal liability has two preconditions: the person's responsibility for compliance with the rule and the causation of the defined consequence. Where the violation caused less grave or grave injury to health, the perpetrator is punished by a fine or corrective labor for up to one year or imprisonment for up to two years. At this tier the penalty ranges from a fine to imprisonment, and the measure is influenced by the qualification of the severity of the injury, the rules of which are defined by other normative acts. If the injury does not reach this level, no liability arises under this norm, and the outcome of the case depends precisely on this qualification. Within this range a fine is the mildest form and imprisonment up to two years the strictest, the choice depending both on the degree of injury and on the circumstances of the violation. Assessing the degree of injury requires an examination of the victim's health, and its result directly determines the tier of the penalty.
Punishment where death is caused
Far graver are the consequences where death results: the same act causing the death of a person is punished by imprisonment from two to five years, with deprivation of the right to hold a position or carry on an activity for up to three years or without it. And where the act provided for by the first part caused the death of two or more persons, the punishment is imprisonment from four to seven years, with deprivation for up to three years. Both compositions are consequential: the penalty requires a causal link between the violation and the death, and the death of two or more persons constitutes a separate composition whose proof must be established for each victim individually. At all tiers the investigation follows the general procedural rules.