Minsk City Court considers Bialiatski's appeal against a new fine
On12 April the Minsk City Court considers the
appeal of the imprisoned head of the Human Rights Center “Viasna” Ales
Bialiatski against the verdict of the Pershamaiski District Court of Minsk
according to which he was sentenced to pay 140 million rubles of fine for an
untimely payment of taxes.
Bialiatski was sentenced to the fine of 140 million rubles by Judge of the
Pershamaiski District Court of Minsk Volha Baham'ya on 29 March, on lawsuit of
the Pershamaiski District Tax Inspection of Minsk. Neither Bialiatski, nor his
lawyer, friendsor relatives knew anything about this trial.
Where has the new fine been taken from?
It's known that during the consideration of the criminal case against
Bialiatski at court the Pershamaiski District Procuracy asked to exact from him
“the harm he has done to the state by the non-payment of the income tax, (plus
the state fee), indexing it with respect to the inflation)”. The court did it,
despite the illegality of such a decision, as the tax legislation provides only
one kind of indexation – a fine which is appointed on the basis of the
refinancing rate.
As a result, the sum increased to 750 million rubles. The Pershamaiski District
Tax Inspection, in its turn, considered 2008 as the starting point for the
debt, which lasted till the payment in 2012 (after the imprisonment of Ales
Bialiatski), and filed a civil lawsuit, demanding that he pay 140 366 151
rubles of fine.
While appealing the verdict of the Pershamaiski District Court, Bialiatski's
lawyer Dzmitry Layeuski pointed at the illegality of the indexation of the sum
of the “inflicted harm”, but the panel of justice of the Minsk City Court
ignored this fact. The lawyer also put this question in the feview appeal,
filed to the head of the Minsk City Court, but with no results.
Thus, ignoring the legal norms, the procuracy and the court are trying to
extort as much money as possible from the human rights defender in order to
make him confess his guilt and repent.
