Brest regional court upholds non-registration of Mikalai Charnavus' candidacy

On 7 April, Heorhi Dzmitruk, Judge of the Brest regional court, considered the complaint of the Baranavichy entrepreneur Mikalai Charnavus with participation of prosecutor Halina Vasilevich.

Mr. Charnavus asked the court to reverse the decision of the Brest regional election commission and oblige it to register him as a candidate for the Baranavichy city election commission.

The trial lasted for about two hours. The arguments of the both sides were heard. The Brest regional election commission was represented at the trial by its Deputy Chairperson, Natallia Hryhoryieva. She stated that the main reason for non-registering Mikalai Charnavus was that he had filled the income declaration in a wrong way. Mikalai Charnavus didn't agree with this argument and stated that she was running at elections for the third time already and there hadn’t been any pretensions to his income declarations before.

It’s quite interesting that Mikalai Charnavus collected sufficient evidence that the Baranavichy city election commission had forged documents during the verification of his signature sheets. However, the Brest regional election commission didn’t consider this issue and focused only on the income declaration.

The court also declined Charnavus' petition for summoning to the trial the tax inspector and the electors who had been cheated by members of the Baranavichy city election commission. The complaint of Mikalai Charnavus was dismissed and he was left without registration.

Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections