After Application to UNO Human Rights Committee
On 9 December 2001 the “Chain of Concerned People” action was held in Brest. 12 people were detained and given different punishments.
On 24 March 2003, after application to the UNO Human Rights Committee, V.A. Sukala, Head of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus, set aside the ruling of Brest Leninski Borough Court of 5 December 2003 concerning two of the detainees, M.H. Mikalayuk and M.I. Klimovich, and stopped the administrative case against them because of absence of corpus delicti.
“Mikalayuk M.H. and Klimovich M.I. really were in the group of the citizens who were standing and holding portraits of the missing people, stating the fact of their disappearance. They didn’t express any interests or protest, mentioned in the Law (“About assemblies, … and pickets”). That’s why in this case their activities can’t be qualified as picketing. So, the corpus delicti, provided by pat 1 of Article No. 167-1 CAV, is absent. In such circumstances the judge’s ruling can’t be considered as legal and reasonable.”
It’s worth mentioning that all in all 5 applications were submitted to the Human Rights Committee, 3 of them – from Belarus, almost a year ago, 2 – from the territory of Poland, six months ago. The last 2 were fruitful. It’s quite interesting, however, what happened to the first three.
