Representatives of the UN, Council of Europe, Belarus Foreign Ministry, state structures and civil society had a perfunctory discussion about the introduction of an ombudsman’s institution in Belarus.
International seminar “National institutions for human rights: creation and functioning” took place in Minsk on July 18. Representatives of the UN, Council of Europe, Belarus Foreign Ministry, as well as representatives of a number of state structures and civil society took part in the seminar.
“EuroBelarus” Information Service discussed the results of the meeting with Siarhei Drazdouski, the coordinator of the Office for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and a civil society representative actively involved in the work on formation of ombudsman’s institution in Belarus.
- Siarhei, please tell us about the most important issues discussed at the seminar.
- But there were no such issues! It was a through-passage meeting, which only enabled us to raise the issue in public. Actually, the topic didn’t develop any further. And for sure, there were no sincere plans to move further.
Nevertheless, though already broadly discussed by all experts, yet another time the viewpoint of Grigory Vasilevich, the author of the national concept of an ombudsman position was voiced. And though easily found in books and webpages, a number of international foreign ombudsmen’ representatives were present.
The meeting was organized in such a way that it was impossible to analyze all the questions that we had. All the more that except the above mentioned project of Vasilevich, Belarus’ position wasn’t introduced.
I.e. the question why Belarus still doesn’t have an ombudsman’s position wasn’t discussed and clarified. Thus, the discussion was one-sided.
Despite the vast number of qualified invited experts, the seminar was unremarkable. It became neither a revelation nor a serious step in understanding the Belarusan process of joining the institution of an ombudsman.
- What did Belarusan officials answer to the question why there is no established institution of an ombudsman in Belarus?
- They didn’t give any direct answers; Belarus Foreign Ministry answered all the questions. There was no report of this issue.
- Does it mean that constructive dialog between the UN, Council of Europe, Belarusan official structures and the representatives of the civil society never happened?
- You know, from the point of view of the state, this dialog was constructive; but as to its productiveness, it was reduced to a minimum.
- What do you think, should we take into account the experience of national institutions’ work when creating ombudsman’s position in accordance with Paris Principles?
- Surely. We should take our experience into account, all the more that a number of former Soviet Union countries have both negative and positive experience, and we can use that. All the more that we also have standards and recommendations of how we can do that.
At the seminar Belarus Foreign Ministry emphasized more than once that the state is doing this not because of some pressure or obligations, but because it is needed for the country today.
But we can only guess how sincere these statements are.
- How can you assess the work of the permanent committee for human rights under the Belarusan Parliament?
- I can give no assessments of its work, because no work is going on. It is hard to say whether bureaucratic structures are working on the formation of ombudsman’s post, because there is no actual public information about that.
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