Parties Fail to Execute Demand of Ministry of Justice
1 February is the deadline by which the oppositional parties of Belarus were to have transferred their structures from dwelling houses to non-residential premises. The parties failed to do it. Almost all leaders of oppositional democratic parties think that the demand of the Ministry of Justice is illegal, because registration of the structures of parties in residential premises was allowed by the law which is not retroactive. The head of United Civil Party Anatol Liabedzka said:
-- Every demand is to be rooted in normative acts. The thing is that this wish of the Ministry of Justice is not rooted in the Constitution and the active laws that regulate the activity of political parties. Moreover, our requests to the executive vertical were astonishing – every official explains the order for registration of regional party structures in his own way. These explanations often contradict to the acting legislation.
Representatives of UCP and Belarusian People’s Front tried to register new regional party structures, but the authorities refused to do it. According to the leader of BPF Vintsuk Viachorka the party didn’t manage to find non-residential premises for offices. Moreover, in Hrodna BPF organizations are evicted from a non-residential house because it allegedly needs to be repaired. Representatives of Belarusian Social Democratic Party “Narodnaya Hramada” and Belarusian Social Democratic Party also received refusals when looking for the places where they could place their offices. The BSDP leader Stanislaw Shushkevich said:
-- We consider this demand absolutely lawless. We can’t change anything and consider it as ordinary political pressure, aimed at liquidation of our political party.
Only representatives of the Party of Communists still try to find new premises for their units.
Leaders of oppositional parties have filed a letter to the justice minister Viktar Halavanaw with the proposal to meet and discuss this problem but still received no answer t it. They say that in the case of liquidation the structures of the parties would act illegally.
RFE/RL
