Mariam Meladze – a 26-year-old prosecutor.

“Like every child, I had a great number of professions in my mind. Only in the ninth form I decided to become a lawyer. At the end of the first year at the university I was sure I made a right decision.

Despite the fact that I received different kinds of professional experience during my studying years at the university, I had firmly decided to work as a prosecutor.

On the third year at the university I started working in SAIA, I monitored trials. At first, it was a bit embarrassing for me to monitor professional prosecutors and lawyers, some of them were my lecturers, though, I soon overcame this kind of inconvenience as I knew that I had a chance to gain a very important professional experience. Later, when there were exams at Prosecutor’s Office, I took part. I was not ready for the exam, as I thought I would pass it because of my experience in monitoring the trials. I thought that such kind of experience would be quite enough to get good results on the exam but I was wrong and I got a very bitter but necessary lesson.

After that I passed qualification exams of advocacy and I started working at SAIA as a lawyer in direction of Criminal Law. Later, there were several exams at Prosecutor’s Office and I passed them successfully and at present I work in the Prosecutor’s Office in Samtredia region.

Once I had a process about violence in a family, I demanded imprisonment. One of the attendees called me a “sadist”. Of course, it’s not pleasant when you get aggression but you must be firm to response this kind of negative feedback and always have a good understanding about what and why you work for. First of all, I realize that all people I defend pay their money for their own safety. In general, a prosecutor does everything in the name of the state and he or she is not a private person, but a state accuser. For that, I always have feeling that I do my duty for my country.

Very often I have to make an explanation about the fact that accusation of people is not our duty. We work hard for preventing crime and re-socializing criminals. To achieve this, we have a project “Public Prosecutor’s Office” within which we visit educational centers and talk to the school students about different kinds of crime and accusation. We also work actively with local municipalities and nongovernmental organizations.

In my childhood criminal, in general, was very romanticized. This attitude changed. We make imitative trials in which school students take part.

I have been a prosecutor for a year already and I have worked on different kinds of crime but the biggest challenge for me is violence in a family. This is a complicated problem. All sides involved in the violence affect the society differently.

It is general attitude that violence in a family is only a private problem, though, it’s impossible to think that violence remains only in the family and each child, who faces violence can be a potential criminal and have negative influence on society.

It is relevant for the victim of the violence to have sense of safety and know that the state supports him/her. Many people speak about problems in educational system and I also think that we have many challenges which are related to attitudes and approaches of people. We study both at school and university with the sense that this step must be passed over or accomplished; we do not perceive education as an opportunity, but a mandatory step of our lives.

In my opinion, requirement in educational centers must rise. It is quite easy to impress examiners at school or at university but it’s crucial not to be locked in your illusions and educational borders, teachers and lecturers should help you see what and why you have to study and work for.