Justice Ministry brings Andrei Sannikau's lawyer to administrative responsibility
The Justice Ministry has brought to
disciplinary responsibility the lawyer who defends the arrested presidential
candidate Andrei Sannikau.
The Justice Ministry has sent a
recommendation to the Minsk City Bar to bring lawyer Pavel Sapelka (Andrei
Sannikau’s defence lawyer) to disciplinary responsibility, and offered to
consider the expediency of his staying a member of the bar.
Displeasure of the Justice Ministry had
been caused by the words of the lawyer of the KGB prisoner about 'the pressure
on the part of the state on the work of state lawyers'.
The Justice Ministry believes that the
lawyer 'has taken the liberty of making inappropriate statements about the college
of lawyers, as an independent legal institution, and questioned justifiability
of actions of the Justice Ministry'.
One more victim of 'the rampage of the
law' was a decision to annul the license of the lawyer of the Hrodna Regional
Bar, V. Busko, 'for violation of the law currently in force in the form of
participation in the unsanctioned rally on 19 December 2010, which caused mass
riots and damage to the state institutions'.
Other lawyers 'have been warned that they should make
more appropriate comments in the media, which would not give a handle to
distortion of real facts and information received'.