Draft law on alternative service gets positive signals from the Parliament

The suggestion to hold public discussion of the draft law “On alternative service” was heard by the deputies of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Belarus.

Let us recall that on July 30 the Legal Transformation Centre “Lawtrend” addressed its appeal to Uladzimir Andrejchanka, the deputy of the House of Representatives, as well as to all the parliamentary commissions, asking to declassify the draft law “On alternative service” for further public discussion with the interested civil society actors.

On August 12 Legal Transformation Centre received first answers to the appeal. It is notable that they came from the non-core standing parliamentary commissions: from the housing committee and from the committee of public housing, local administration and regulation.

As Elena Tonkacheva, the head of the Legal Transformation Centre “Lawtrend”, noted in the talk with the EuroBelarus Information Service, the answers from the other commissions are expected shortly. She told that basing on the first received answers the petitioners have assured solutions to a number of tasks planned initially: “We wanted to challenge parliamentary commissions with the information that the law is being developed secretly, i.e. it is marked as “confidential”. Besides, the parliamentarians had to be notified that there are civil society representatives who are interested in the discussion of this law. We assume that these goals have basically been reached”.

According to Elena Tonkacheva, the received answers make it clear that the appeal to hold public discussion was not left unseen. “There is also a suggestion to return to the subject after the draft law is submitted to the parliament, which assumingly is going to happen in October”, - noted the head of the Lawtrend. Thus, Mr. Hrytskevich, deputy chairman of the standing parliamentary committee of public housing, local administration and regulation, marked that the deputies of this committee think it fit to revert to the additional discussion of the suggestions made by the Legal Transformation Centre when the draft law is considered by the House of Representatives in first reading.

Owing to the appeals, it became known that the national security committee will become the core committee for the draft law “On alternative service”. “Accordingly, all our next actions will possibly be addressed to the speaker of the House of Representatives and the national security committee”, - Elena Tonkacheva stated.