Consideration of “Marat” to Ministry of Information Postponed to 8 July

On 1 July Judge of the Supreme Economic Court of Belarus Valery Shobik postponed consideration of suit of the Unitarian enterprise “Marat” to the Ministry of Information to 8 July.

By its suit “Marat” complaint against the warning of the Ministry of Information of 21 May for a series of publications, entitled “Afghan Greyhounds” and the article “Magic Crystal”, published in March, in No. 3 (14). According to the warning, the mentioned materials “contained untrue information, which contradicts to Articles 32 and 40 of the Law “On press”.

The lawyer Siarhey Pratasavitski presented “Marat” interests in court. The defendants in the case were Aliaksey Lukhverchyk, main juridical consultant of the Ministry of Information, and Liliya Bohdan, Head of the main juridical board. Grounding their position, they simply referred to the determination of the Prosecutor’s Office of Belarus “About liquidation of law violations in press and other mass media”, that brought the warning. The defendants said that they didn’t doubt in the competence of the Prosecutor’s Office and had no obligation to check its objectivity.

According to Article No. 3 of the Economic Process Code of Belarus, in such cases State bodies have to prove legality of its non-normative acts that are complained against. However, Judge decided to postpone the trial and obliged the newspaper founders to find evidence that the newspaper information was true”. That’s why on 8 July not the Ministry of Information, but the editorial office of “BDG. Dlya Sluzhebnogo Polzovaniya” will have to prove its innocence.