Dzianis Vaskabovich: we will defend our rights

Dzianis Vaskabovich is 36 years old. He is an architect. Graduated from the Belarusian Polytechnical Academy, has two sons. They lived in a private house that is ruined because of construction of metro along Dziarzhynski Avenue. The Vaskabovich’s and many of their neighbors were offered to move to the social apartments, where the life conditions are worse, and got no compensation from the state for it.

‘Our family owns a two-storeyed private house near Dziarzhynski Avenue. It is a brick house with all necessary facilities. It is situated on the piece of land that is also owned by us.

In 2005 we were informed that our house was in the zone of metro construction and therefore was to be dismantled. Of course, we deeply analyzed the appropriate norms of the Belarusian legislation concerning the dismantlement of private houses for the state needs and the relations between the owners, builders and the state agencies. Having done it, we made everything necessary for protection of our rights. We timely warned the builders and other interested parties about the variants of compensation that suited us and proposed the variants for purchase of a new house.

However, the communal unitary enterprise Direction for construction of Minsk metro and the administrations of Maskouski district and Minsk city executive committees took the stance that grossly violates our rights that are guaranteed by the legislation and the Constitution.

We applied to court to defend them. The case was considered for eight months. On 30 January 2009 the judge of Maskouski district court Rudnitskaya ruled that we were to be deprived of the ownership rights to the house and nine people belonging to three families were to be moved to two social apartments in the Loshytsa suburb. By the way, these apartments are equal only to one half of the floor space of the house.

The judge mentioned the legal norms she was guided by neither in the verdict, nor in its motivation part. On 6 March we received refusal in explanation of the court verdict.

We have deeply studied the acting norms of the state legislation and have taken all the necessary steps. That’s why today we state that our rights have been grossly violated and the court issued an unlawful verdict that contradicts to the law and cannot be grounded by any legal norms.

During the trial the court was rudely and openly pressurized by Minsk city executive committee. We addressed the head of the state with a complaint against the court and the city administration, but it was passed to the court and the city administration.

At present the situation is beyond the limits of the legal field – all our attempts to establish a dialogue give no results and our complaints are ignored. We have been deprived of our rights, including the right to fair trial. We hanged out a banner on our house in order to draw public attention to our problems. Our complaint was signed by more than a hundred neighbors.

We received dozens of calls from the owners, whose houses are dismantled for the state needs. They tell about violations of the law, their civil rights and the cynicism of the officials of the local administrations. We will insistently tell the supreme legislative and executive authorities about it.