Automated decision-making at the workplace: the legal framework in Georgia
Enterprises increasingly automate decisions on candidate selection, employee evaluation, scheduling and pay. The Labour Code of Georgia knows no stand-alone institution for automated decision-making, but such decisions are fully governed by the Code's general rules. This page explains the three pillars that matter most: the allocation of the burden of proof in discrimination disputes, the consequences of violating the non-discrimination principle, and the special statutory guarantees with which a system-generated decision most often collides — the leave regime connected with pregnancy, childbirth, childcare and adoption.
The burden of proof in a discrimination dispute
When an algorithmic decision is legally challenged, the decisive rule concerns the burden of proof. In a dispute connected with the prohibition of discrimination, the burden rests on the employer if the candidate or the employee points to facts or circumstances that create a basis for a reasonable presumption that the employer violated the requirement of the non-discrimination ban. In practice this means that the weight of documenting and explaining the outcomes, criteria and operation of an automated assessment shifts to the employer once a prima facie case is indicated. It is precisely for this reason that the process of using algorithmic tools must be recorded and interpretable: the logic and the results of a system's decisions are the material with which the employer will defend its position — or fail to. Documentation discipline around automated decisions is therefore not a technicality but the core of litigation readiness.
Consequences of violating the non-discrimination principle
The Labour Code ties a violation of the non-discrimination principle directly to administrative liability. An employer's violation of the ban on discrimination — including direct and indirect discrimination, harassment and sexual harassment at the workplace — of the principle of reasonable accommodation, or of the rule on equal pay for equal work, results in a warning or a fine applied under the procedure established by paragraph 1 of Article 77 of the Code, at three times the amount of the respective fine. If the same act is committed repeatedly within 1 calendar year from the imposition of the administrative penalty for that violation, the fine doubles — it is imposed at twice the amount of the fine for the respective violation.
The regime for harassment cases deserves separate mention: imposing liability on the offending employee does not release the employer from the corresponding liability. The employer may itself be held liable if it became aware of a fact of harassment or sexual harassment and did not notify the labour inspection of that fact and did not take appropriate measures to prevent the conduct. In the context of automated systems this means that becoming aware of a fact flagged or recorded by a system — and remaining passive about it — can itself become a ground for liability. Silence after a system surfaces a problem is not a neutral option.