Volha Smalianka: There are no signs that registration of public associations got simpler

The Belarusan Ministry of Justice promises to simplify this procedure, but “in reality, it is not exactly true”.

The draft law amending the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On Public Associations" has been recently approved in first reading by the House of Representatives. According to the Ministry of Justice, the law is aimed at simplification of the public associations’ and political parties’ work and establishment, as well as at specifying certain provisions stipulated by the application in practice”.

About what exactly is simplified EuroBelarus Information Service asked Volha Smalianka, the director of the Legal Transformation Centre “Lawtrend”.

 - The procedure of registration of public associations and their unions is very complicated in Belarus: for common citizens it is hard to understand as well as it is expensive; it includes a broad number of refusals in registration of public associations and parties. Thus, if we want to state the simplification of the registration procedure we should change the whole procedure.

- So the Ministry of Justice implies that some partial simplification was carried out?

- Well, these parts can differ. Sometimes certain actions demonstrate readiness for systemic changes. And in our case there are some positive regulations, but they are so insignificant that we cannot say that the procedure of registration got simplified. And the draft law that was submitted to the parliament differs a lot from its approved version for the worse.

- Still, what changes should those willing to establish their own public association or political party wait?

- The main change consists in the number of founders required to establish the republican public association. For now 50 founders – 10 from Minsk and 10 in four more regions – should be present; in the current version there should be 50 founders with no respect to the territory where they live, though regional representatives should still be present.

Second change decreases the number of founders for some local public associations, such as district and inter-district. This regulation is but positive, though I would say it is reasonable rather than simplifying.

And the third amendment that can be called simplifying is the attempt to change the procedure of establishment and registration of Belarusan departments of international public associations. But still, the original draft law was trying to answer the questions “What does “department” mean?”, “How is it created?”, while the final lawapproved in first reading has fewer answers to these questions. That is why, I believe, there are no serious signs that the procedure of registration and work of public associations and political parties got simplified. 

Let us also recall that the Decree of the President "On introduction of amendments and additions to the decree of the President of Belarus No.1 of January 16, 2009" came into force on May 1^st.This document considerably increases the possibilities for the liquidation of certain types of non-profit organizations.