Supreme Court Liquidates Belarusian Center for Constitutionalism and Comparative Legal Studies and International Institute for Political Studies
According to RFE/RL, on 22 April the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus liquidated two independent organizations – Belarusian Center for Constitutionalism and Comparative Legal Studies and International Institute for Political Studies. Both of the organizations dealt with research in politics. First of them is cooperated with the Council of Europe in the field of human rights. For the seven years of its activity Belarusian Center of Constitutionalism and Comparative Legal Studies held several conferences on these issues and published 30 books. Among them there are such works as “Abolishment of Death Penalty in Belarus” and “Political Parties in Belarus”. The Center also facilitated the wider use of the European standards of human rights in Belarusian laws.
Scientists of the International Institute of Political Research studied the problems of security, international relations and peculiarities of the political situation of Belarus. Commentaries of the institute experts were often published by Belarusian independent media and abroad.
Both organizations were liquidated on the initiative of the Ministry of Justice. In one of the cases the controllers from the Ministry of Justice found mistakes in the registration documents, in the other they found out that the juridical address was registered at a private flat. The Supreme Court agreed with the Ministry of Justice and considered that these reasons were sufficient for the liquidation of the organizations.
The worker of the closed International Institute for Political Studies Andrey Fiodaraw thinks that these liquidations can be a part of preparation of the authorities to political campaigns. “First of all, it is the Parliamentary election and, secondly, possible referendum about amendments to the Constitution concerning the third presidential term. The authorities don’t want any independent organizations to register it all, as it can influence the results and give publicity to the information that is undesirable for the authorities”.
