IWPR - May 1st, 2003

The Belarusian president makes life harder for political opponents who fall foul of the law.

By Natalia Mukha in Minsk

Human rights activists in Belarus are concerned that the government is trying to reduce their ability to defend victims of abuses.

Last week, a presidential decree came into force preventing rights campaigners defending people in certain trials. The ruling applies only to cases under civil law and to minor offences. Its critics say most actions against opposition groups and independent media are of this nature.

The press office of President Alexander Lukashenko said the change was simply a way of ensuring people got a proper defence in court, “Representing citizens’ interests in court requires professional preparation. Therefore, people who are not competent to represent their interests in court should be excluded.

“Implementation of this decree is designed to raise the standard of civil legal proceedings.”

Lukashenko recently told parliament that such lay defenders were undermining the legal profession, “They come to the court rooms, disrupt the proceedings, and shout that no lawyers are needed. One day they are sharing foreign grants [with opposition groups], the next they’re coming to defend them.”

But campaigners have protested that the decree will severely curtail their rights. They argue that the right to represent and defend the interests of citizens is written into their constitutions, which have been agreed by the government as part of their official registration process.

“Decree no. 13 pours oil on the flames, and shows a rejection of international values,” said Oleg Gulak, the executive director for the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, BHC, one of the country’s major human rights groups.

Rights campaigners defend people in around 500 trials a year - a tenth of all actions brought under civil and administrative law. Many of these are politically related cases, involving actions brought against opposition activists, journalists or participants in demonstrations. By taking them up, rights activists are filling a gap left by professional lawyers, who tend to shun anything sensitive.

BHC spokesman Dmitry Markushevsky told IWPR that lawyers are reluctant to get involved in political trials, or in any case involving a state official as the plaintiff. They risk losing their license, which has to be renewed every five years.

Campaigners say the decree is an attempt by the authorities to stop them defending political cases, and opposition activists agree. Timofei Dranchuk, coordinator of the Zubr youth movement, said the introduction of the decree will make it easier for the state to step up its repression of activists and demonstrators.

Campaigners say they will continue supporting defendants despite the new decree, acting as informal advisers rather than their official defence.

“We will go on defending people anyway,” Gulak said. “Decree ?13 will not bind us. Whereas previously we used to send an official representative from our organisation to court, now we will participate as representatives. The civil code gives individuals the right to invite anyone they like as representatives.”

But even this loophole may soon be closed, warns Valentin Stefanovich from the Vesna human rights centre, “The document contains instructions for the council of ministers and the justice ministry to do further work on the system of representation in court. As a result, the procedure for representation in court may be changed, and then human rights organisations will not be able to defend people at all.”

Another group, Legal Assistance for the Population, believes that the decree is also a blow to poor people. “We mainly provide legal assistance to poor people and unlike lawyers, we do it free of charge,” said Raisa Mikhailovskaya, the organisation’s executive director.

“I think the publication of Decree no. 13 is a further restriction of citizens’ rights to legal assistance.”

Human rights campaigners, meanwhile, have written to European and international organisations to draw their attention to the decree.

Natalia Mukha is a reporter for the newspaper Argumenty i fakty v Belarusi