Georgia: Joint statement on the Establishment of a Mental Health Registry

We, undersigned organisations working in the field of mental health and human rights; mental health professionals and human rights experts, express grave concern regarding the recent amendments to Georgia’s Mental Health Law, which mandate the creation of a national registry of individuals with mental health conditions by 1 May 2026. The registry is to be established with the active involvement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, granting law enforcement authorities access to highly sensitive mental health data. 

These amendments, adopted in December 2025, will have cascading effects across multiple laws, including the law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Law on Civil Service and reflect a broader shift toward authoritarian governance. 

Framed as measures to enhance public safety, the amendments in fact constitute an unjustified interference with the right to respect for private life and create conditions conducive to discrimination, stigmatization and exclusion from public and political life, compounded by the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive data. 

The amendments raise serious concerns regarding their compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and other international human rights obligations binding on Georgia. As a State Party to the CRPD, Georgia is legally obliged to ensure that persons with psychosocial disabilities enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis with others. 

In particular, the amendments are incompatible with, inter alia:

• Article 22 (Respect for Privacy) requires State Parties to protect the confidentiality of personal, health, and rehabilitation information.
• Article 25 (Health), which obliges States Parties to ensure that health services are provided on the basis of free and informed consent.
• Article 5 (Equality and Non-Discrimination), which prohibits any distinction, exclusion, or restriction based on disability that has the purpose or effect of impairing or nullifying the recognition or exercise of rights on an equal basis with others.

The registry may interfere with a wide range of human rights, including the right to private and family life, the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to participate in public and political life, the right to work, and the right to health. Such interferences are not supported by international human rights standards and cannot be considered necessary, proportionate, or justified in a democratic society.

The immediate consequences are severe: fear of being documented, labeled, or monitored by the police will deter individuals from seeking mental health care, leading to untreated conditions, wider treatment gaps, and deterioration of population-level mental health outcomes. Centralization of sensitive data accessible to law enforcement drastically increases the risk of data breaches, abuse of power, and discriminatory misuse of records.

Particular concern arises from the lack of consultation in developing and adopting these amendments. Mental health professionals, service users, professional associations, civil society organizations, and independent experts were not engaged in the process.

From a public health perspective, the implications of this legislation are deeply alarming. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately one in seven people globally lives with a mental health condition, with anxiety and depressive disorders increasing markedly in recent years, particularly in contexts characterized by political instability, social stress, and economic insecurity. In countries such as Georgia, where exposure to conflict, political crisis, and uncertainty is widespread, the prevalence of these conditions is likely to exceed global averages. In this context, a centralized registry linked to law enforcement risks encompasses a substantial proportion of the population. 

Furthermore, the structure and logic of the proposed registry closely mirror practices observed in the Russian Federation, where centralized mental health registries with law-enforcement access have been introduced under the justification of public safety. In societies with a historical experience of the political abuse of psychiatry, such mechanisms cannot be viewed as neutral administrative instruments.

Lastly, the establishment of a mental health registry, if accessible to law enforcement agencies, poses particularly severe and disproportionate risks for survivors of torture, ill-treatment, and other forms of state violence. 

Many such individuals require long-term psychological and psychiatric care for trauma-related conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety disorders. Subjecting their most sensitive medical information to potential access by the same state institutions associated with past or ongoing abuses risks retraumatization, reinforces fear and mistrust of public institutions, and effectively excludes survivors from seeking care. 

In practice, this creates a chilling effect on access to rehabilitation, undermines Georgia’s obligations to ensure redress and rehabilitation for victims of torture, and may amount to indirect discrimination against a highly vulnerable group whose protection is specifically required under international human rights law.

We, the undersigned associations, as part of a global movement striving for the prevention of torture and the rehabilitation of survivors, urge the Georgian government to:

• Immediately suspend the implementation of the national mental health registry and to repeal all provisions that allow the Ministry of Internal Affairs or any law enforcement authority access to mental health data, as the involvement of policing bodies in the collection, storage, or use of medical information violates the right to privacy, undermines medical confidentiality, and contravenes Georgia’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and European human rights standards;
• Promptly initiate a transparent, good-faith review of the Mental Health Law through meaningful consultation with mental health professionals, professional associations, service users and persons with lived experience, civil society organizations, independent legal and medical experts, and relevant international mechanisms;

• Bring the Law on Mental Health into full compliance with Georgia’s binding obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, World Health Organization guidance, and European human rights and data protection frameworks;
• Protect the sensitive data of survivors of torture, ill-treatment, and state violence from any form of registration or data-sharing that involves law enforcement or security agencies. Mental health services for survivors must be governed by strict confidentiality, survivor consent, and independence from policing structures, in line with Georgia’s obligations under the UN Convention against Torture and related international standards on rehabilitation;

• Ensure that survivors of torture and state violence have access to safe, independent, and trauma-informed mental health services without fear of surveillance, retaliation, or secondary harm. This includes guaranteeing that rehabilitation services are institutionally separated from law enforcement bodies and that legislation explicitly protects survivors from any use of mental health data for investigative, preventive, or punitive purposes.

Mental health policy must be grounded in scientific evidence, professional ethics, democratic participation, and respect for human dignity. Systems modeled on authoritarian practices do not enhance public safety; they erode trust, intensify stigma, restrict fundamental rights, and cause long-term harm to individuals and society.

For more information please contact:  

For the Georgian Center for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation for Torture Victims (GCRT)

Elene Koridze, Program Manager, at ekoridze@gcrt.ge  

For the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT)

Roberto Frifrini, EU Law and advocacy program manager, at rfr@irct.org  

Signatories: 

Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry 

Coordinating Center for Traumatized Refugees (Centra)

Cordelia Foundation for the Rehabilitation of Torture Victims

International Medical Rehabilitation Center for the Victims of Wars and Totalitarian Regimes (IRC)

The Kosovo Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims (KRCT)

Georgian Center for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (GCRT)

Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT)

International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT)

Centre for Psychotraumatology at the Helsinki Deaconess Foundation 

Rehabilitation Centre for Stress and Trauma (RCT)

International Aid Network IAN

Asociación Española de Neuropsiquiatría – Profesionales de Salud Mental (AEN-PSM)

Centre Action Social Réhabilitation et Réadaptation pour la victime de la Torture et de la guerre (SOHRAM-CASRA)

The Albanian Rehabilitation Center for trauma and Torture (ARCT) 

Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison (ADMSP)