Supreme Economic Court Refuses to Consider IREX Complaints

Based on information of Radio “Liberty”

Workers of Minsk IREX representation have been preparing to the closure since 7 August. At the same time, the IREX representation, to whom the Foreign Affairs Ministry refused to prolong the accreditation, continues to complain against these actions to court.

The first complaint against the Foreign Affairs Ministry was submitted to the Supreme Economic Court on 25 July. On Monday, 4 August, the representation received the refusal to accept the complaint together with the filed documents. IREX is of the opinion that the court bodies purposefully protract the time. This court decision will be complained against to the Head of the Supreme Economic Court.

“We will complain against this decision, as the court refused to accept the documents for an invented reason. The court decided that the document, sent by the ministry was not the one that could be complained against”, -- said the IREX lawyer Iryna Awchynnikava. She also pointed out that the ministry that accused IREX of law violations violated the law itself by giving no answers to official appeals for 10 days. IREX didn’t receive any answer for its request to postpone the liquidation, as the representation workers had to work 12 hours a day for folding up all the projects in Belarus. The lawyer says that despite the consideration of the complaints at the Supreme Economic Court the organization stopped its activity in Belarus: “Since 7 August we stop our activity, we haven’t any right to do anything here except for preparation our documents to the archive. We will not violate the order and don’t want any actions against the organization”