Volha Smalianka: The Ministry of Justice serves as an overseer

Law’s provisions permit the Ministry of Justice to refuse registration to any public association in Belarus.

The director of the Legal Transformation Centre “Lawtrend” Volha Smalianka commented upon the statement of the Minister of Justice Aleh Slizheuski aboutthe Ministry of Justice that decides against registration in all cases by virtue of law’s provisions.

“There exists no possibility for the civil servant to affirm or to decline registration according to the law’s provisions”, - stated Aleh Slizheuski, commenting upon the statistics about declines in registration to public associations and political parties for 2012.

Law with broad interpretations

Volha Smalianka noted that the procedure of registration of public associations is extremely difficult in Belarus. And in order to decline registration, the Ministry of Justice doesn’t have to invent anything. “In the majority of cases declines in registration are really lawful”, - agreed the expert.

The fact that the very legislation in Belarus has little to do with international standards in the sphere of freedom of associations is another story. As according to the generally accepted rules the organizations can be declined registration only in exceptional cases – when the goals of organization are openly illegal.

“For example, when the goals of organization not only violate the law, but infringe upon the rights and interests of other people, or, being terroristic or extremist, are aimed at threatening national security or public order”, - told Volha Smalianka.

In other cases the presumption of innocence for the organization is in force. “And it is assumed that the state has mechanisms to control the working organizations so that it will be able to deprive them of their registration when the actions of one of them are illegal. But such cases are stature-restricted, too”, - noted the lawyer.

In Belarus legislation doesn’t permit to register an organization in case the documents submitted for registration have unreliable information. “Sometimes it results in ridiculous situations, when organizations got declines because telephone numbers of the organization founders are incorrect”, - exemplified Volha Smalianka.

Besides, she noted that in some points legislation is not described in details: “By the way, it concerns international public associations. We have cases when two organizations were declined due to the diametrically opposite reasons. And all because of the law written with allowance for loose and broad interpretations”.

Subjective judgment of the officials

However, law enforcement practice leaves much to be desired, too: “It’s an open secret that people who are trying to create their own organization sometimes have difficulties with the norms of law, - said Volha Smalianka, - And the Ministry of Justice serves as an overseer and tries to find the basis to decline registration instead of providing help and advice to people”.

In the result, the practise when one of two organizations with similar documents is being registered and the other is not has become quite widespread in our country.

The Head of the Lawtrend also noted that in many countries public associations are registered not according to the licencing principle that Belarus has, but according to the application or notification instead.

Under the notification procedure the organization just informs the state that the organization is created, and basing on all that this public structure becomes a juridical entity. Under the application principle a certain package is provided for the registering body and this organization is registered automatically. In our country the latter is valid both for commercial organizations and institutions.

Under the licensing principle that is in force in Belarus registration depends much on the subjective opinion of the official, stated Volha Smalianka.