First quarantine lawsuit won by plaintiff in Georgia

A Tbilisi city court granted the claim of Georgian citizen Anna Arganashvili, in which she demanded transfer from quarantine to self-isolation, since the quarantine conditions were unbearable for her 11-year-old child.

This is the first time during the pandemic that someone in Georgia appealed to the court system because of quarantine conditions. The case became a precedent – Irakli Chikovani, the prime minister’s press speaker, says that from now on, the issue of putting minors in quarantine will be decided on an individual basis.

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Anna Arganashvili is a human rights activist. She studied in the USA and returned to Georgia with her husband and child on June 27. Quarantine regulations dictated that she be placed in a 2-week quarantine in one of the hotels in the city of Akhaltsikhe.

The child did not have enough space in the small room. They faced problems washing and eating. The head of the government administration, Natia Mezvrishvili, responded to a post she made on Facebook, writing: “Quarantine is not a resort, the state does not have the resources to maintain rooms in 5-star quarantined hotels.”

However, Arganashvili and her child were transferred to Tbilisi. But staying at a hotel in the capital did not solve their problems. Once again, the child clearly did not have enough space, and the children’s dietary needs were not taken into account when food was provided. Another Facebook post by Anna Arganashvili generated a lot of responses, which made it clear that other children in quarantine were experiencing similar discomfort. It was then that she decided to appeal to the court.

She says that the entire quarantine process was incomprehensible. Many questions arose even as they were crossing the border: the system was poorly organized, there were many artificial barriers, and it was unclear how they decided who was sent home to self-isolate and who was quarantined.

The terms of Anna Arganashvili’s lawsuit have already been satisfied and she and her family are at home in self-isolation. The court decision states that the interests of the child were prioritized, and that it was on this basis that the verdict was issued.