Valiantsin Stefanovich: “We will go back to debate on restricted access to spring96.org website”

Deputy Chairman of the Human Rights Center "Viasna" Valiantsin Stefanovich sent a private complaint to the Board of Civil Cases of the Minsk City Court to challenge a decision of the Tsentralny District Court of Minsk, who dismissed his lawsuit against blacklisting Viasna’s website.

In his complaint, Valiantsin Stefanovich notes that “the court concluded that the decision by the Prosecutor General’s Office of August 8, 2011 imposed no restrictions on me, and my rights were not violated. Thus, according to the court, I am an improper applicant, since the law does not entitle me to appeal this decision.”

The human rights defender says the court’s ruling is not based on the law and violates his legitimate right to appeal the actions of a public authority in court.

Therefore, Valiantsin Stefanovich requests the Minsk City Court to reverse the above decision and to order the court to reopen proceedings on his complaint.

“In its ruling, the court referred to Part 1 of Art. 164 of the Code of Civil Procedures as the base to discontinue my claim, that is, the case is allegedly beyond the jurisdiction of the court. However, the complaint was submitted in the procedure of cases arising from administrative and legal relations, and, according to the Code, this category of cases is within jurisdiction of the courts,” comments the human rights defender.

Valiantsin Stefanovich also says the court’s conclusion that he is an improper applicant is totally wrong:

“Any citizen, if he believes that his rights have been violated, has the right to go to court. In this case, I legitimately exercised my legal right and the court should have decided on the case, either to legitimize the actions and reject the complaint, or find them illegal and order to take measures to restore my rights. The Code of Civil Procedures, in principle, does not contain such thing as the “improper applicant”, it simply does not exist. Therefore, the decision restricted my right to appeal to the court as a citizen, and the court evaded assessing the facts and issuing a decision. I think we’ll meet again with the venerable prosecutor in the Tsentralny District Court and the court will consider my complaint on the merits. We will also return to the debate on restricted access to the internet resource spring96.org,” says Valiantsin Stefanovich.