Court in Brest refuses to open investigation into election fraud

Liudmila Dzenisenka, chairperson of the Brest office of the Belarusian Party of the Left "Fair World", in who was running this years’ local elections as a candidate for the City Council, lodged a complaint with the Leninski District Court in order to find out who voted at their residence in the city’s constituency No. 13. According to the Fair World activist, the minutes of polling station No. 44 suggest that 168 people voted at home on March 23. The Fair World representative believes that it is impossible to cover so many houses in just a few hours (the territory of the polling station includes many private houses), and demanded a probe to check whether the said 168 people actually voted at their homes.

In her complaint, Liudmila Dzenisenka urged the court to find the bans she received from the election commissions unlawful because they violated Part 4 of Article 49-1 of the Election Code, according to which the applicant had the right to review materials related to the consideration of his petitions, as well as to oblige the administration of the Leninski district of Brest to provide the required list of voters so that the activist could read it and make copies.

However, Judge Alena Kavalchuk refused to open a civil case, arguing that the complaint could not be examined by the court “because of lack of jurisdiction”. Meanwhile, Ms. Kavalchuk referred to the fact that the Electoral Code of Belarus said nothing about the possibility of appealing against the electoral commissions’ decisions to refuse access to voting results.