Human rights defender appeals ruling about mass events
Human rights defender Uladzimir Tseliapun applied to
the Mazyr District Court against ruling of the Mazyr District Executive
Committee #1202 of 15 September 2011 concerning the holding of mass events.
After the adoption of this ruling the local authorities started demanding that
organizers of mass events concluded paid service agreements with police, medics
and communal utilities and attached them to applications for the authorization
of such actions.
“It's quite strange, but these institutions don't know how to conclude such
agreements, how to assess the expenditures and what sums to take for their
services,” says the human rights defender.
According to the Law “About normative-legal acts of the Republic of Belarus”,
the rulings of the local executive and administrative bodies that don't
correspond to the legislation of the Republic of Belarus are abolished by
higher executive and administrative organs and by the President of the Republic
of Belarus.
Tseliapun's appeal to the head of the Mazyr District Concil Siarhei Hvozdz
yielded no results, and his appeal to the head of the Homel Region Executive
Committee Uladzimir Dvornik was forwarded to the head of the justice board of
the executive committee.
“In his answer V. Makarevich, the head of the justice board of the Homel Region
Executive Committee, complains that they have no powers to amend, supplement,
abolish … and in general, give any explanations or legal conclusions in the
case of incompatibility of ruling of executive and administrative bodies with
the law. Laws don't act, freedoms are a mere declaration, rights are absent...
What will the court say now?”
Bear in mind that starting from 2006 all attempts of civil activists of Mazyr
to hold mass events were banned by the authorities for absolutely different
reasons.