Elena Tonkacheva is doubtful whether Justas Paleckis’s report is politically consistent

The head of the Legal Transformation Centre “Lawtrend” shared her views concerning the draft report submitted by Justas Paleckis, Rapporteur on Belarus from the European Parliament.

In the comment provided to the EuroBelarus Information Service by “Lawtrend” Elena Tonkacheva expressed her opinion about the draft report “from the human rights and professional judicial prospective”:

“1. I believe there are no actual grounds to state the improvement of the situation in the human rights sphere in Belarus. This assertion not only fails to correspond to the actual facts but also creates false factors (grounds) for refusing (revising) the policies towards Belarus announced by the EU earlier.

2. I believe that unfounded (i.e. not backed up with new changes) rethink of the EU’s policies aimed at the development of collaboration with the Belarusan government is leveling basic values of the unified Europe: human rights, democracy and supremacy of law.

3. I believe that the formats of the EU “Eastern Partnership” and “Dialog on Modernization” programs should be subject to the responsible evaluation and reassessment. By responsible evaluation I understand returning to evaluating programs’ startup (preparation, accommodation, progress estimate of goals, the programs’ conformity to the national conditions), choice of the players for coordinated action, consistency in standards’ promotion, transparency of procedures and mechanisms, participation of the civil society in these processes and factual voice of the civil society”, - Elena Tonkacheva noted.

At that she doubted the report of Justas Paleckis as to its compliance with the principles stated by the EU and its political consistency. Elena Tonkacheva reasoned her position with the fact that:

“1. Belarus still has political prisoners.

2. Belarus didn’t give legal appraisal of the politically reasoned disappearances (Yury Zacharanka, Viktar Hanchar, Zmicier Zavadsky, Anatol Krasouski).

3. Belarus continues applying death penalty.

4. Belarus has no factual improvements in the sphere of the freedom of speech, freedom of associations, freedom of meetings, discrimination problems, and tortures.

5. Belarus has no mechanisms for citizen participation: elections, referendums, direct legislative initiative, mechanisms that allow citizens to participate in decision-making processes”, - is said in the comment of the head of the Legal Transformation Centre.

Let us recall that the draft report will be subject to further scrutiny at one of the sessions of the European Parliament. Upon preparing the report Justas Paleckis visited Minsk on March 18-21 to meet with the officials and the representatives of the Belarusan civil society.