Non-registration of Belarusian Christian Democracy appealed to Supreme Court

September 14, the leaders of the organizing committee of the "Belarusian Christian Democracy" represented by the co-chairman Vital Rymasheuski, executive secretary Dzianis Sadouski and Minsk coordinator Volha Kavalkova filed a complaint with the Supreme Court against the refusal of the Ministry of Justice to register the party.

“The registration denial showed that there weren't any serious grounds to deny the state registration of the BCD, despite the en mass pressurization of its founders. All documents were filed in term and confirmed to all legal requirements. There weren't any fatal errors in them. If the Ministry of Justice just wanted, the found deficiencies could be corrected within 30 minutes. We are confident that our evidence would result in the registration of our party with the state if our appeal was considered by an independent court. However, the courts in Belarus are politically engaged, that's why one of the aims of our present appeal is to express our disagreement with the fact that our party is repeatedly denied registration,” says Dzianis Sadouski.

"We file this appeal in order to once again point at the fact of discrimination and the absence of the freedom of association, as well as the absence of independent courts. We have no illusions and understand that the BCD will be registered only after the change of the political regime," commented Vital Rymasheuski.

The fifth constituent assembly of the party “Belarusian Christian Democracy” was held June 13, 2015. The documents for the registration of the party with the state were passed to the Ministry of Justice in due time. As it became known in the beginning of August, founders of the Belarusian Christian Democracy were summoned to the Kličaŭ District Executive Committee and the Vierchniadzvinsk District Prosecutor's Office and were forced to refuse from their signatures in the founding documents.

The Ministry of Justice failed to inform the organizing committee of the BCD about the results of the registration procedure within the legally provided terms (one month) and stated that the party would not be registered only on August 19.