Administrative Case against Ales Shulzhytski ‘Expires’
On 30 July judge of Smarhon district court Aliaksandr Dziameshchyk stopped an administrative case against a public activist Uladzimir Shulzhytski because of expiry of the 3-month term for the case consideration.
The police accused Uladzimir Shulzytski of swearing at about 6 p.m. On 24 April near a porch of house 45 in Yubileynaya Street in Smarhon. However, he did not take the blame at the trial. Instead the activist explained that on the eve of the detention he threw into postboxes self-made adverts of the Belarusian service of Radio Liberty. There he wrote that citizens could phone him in the case they faced troubles when tuning their radios.
At about 8.15 p.m. on 27 April he received a call from mobile phone 8.0297866742. Somebody told him to come to Yubileynaya Street 45-45 for tuning a radio. Uladzimir recorded the talk on a Dictaphone and presented it to the court. Later it was found out that this phone belongs to Smarhon district police department. Judge Dziameshchyk refused to hold an expertise with the aim to find to whom of the policemen the recorded voice belonged.
Near the porch of the house he was met by two local police inspectors. They asked him where he was going. He answered – to apartment 45. They said they had already phoned there, but nobody was in, and added that thefts had taken place there and Shulzhytski looked suspiciously, that’s why it was necessary to take him to the police department for giving explanations. The activist obeyed. At Smarhon district police department the policemen composed on Shulzhytski a report of administrative violation. They wrote that he swore near the porch, thus violating the public order, and did not react to their remarks.
At first the case was considered by the judge Aliaksandr Kviatkevich. On 5 June 2007 he justified the defendant because of absence of corpus delicti in his actions. Smarhon district prosecutor Mikalai Malinouski appealed the verdict to Hrodna regional court. On 5 June 2007 the judge I.Sobaleu satisfied the appeal and submitted the case for reconsideration.
According to article 9.6 of the Process-executive Code of Administrative Violations, the expiry of the 3-month term of administrative punishment is an obstacle which excludes administrative trial. Nevertheless, judge Dziameshchyk appointed the trial on 27 July 2007, three days after expiry of the abovementioned term.
At the trial Shulzhytski solicited for providing him with a state lawyer as he had no money to hire one. The judge declined the petition and said that appointment of a state lawyer was not provided by the process code.
Besides the police inspectors an interrogator of military unit of frontier guards #2044 Yauhen Piatnitski and Aliaksei Kamayeu, employee of the individual entrepreneur I.Chyzhova. They stated that they were in the place of the incident because Kamayeu had phoned to Piatnitski and the latter agreed to pick him up near house #45 in Yubilieynaya Street by his car. Shulzhytski, in his turn, stated that there were no such witnesses and solicited for making inquiries to Beltelecom, MTS or Velcom telephone companies with the aim to find whether the witnesses really phoned to each other in the specified time. The judge answered that first it was necessary to find whether the telephone companies could give such information and only then he could take a decision on the petition. On 30 July the judge did not mention this petition till the activist stated it once again. Then the judge rejected it.
None of the witnesses managed to say which dirty words Shulzhytski used in particular. For instance, Kamayeu said ‘pissed’. Piatnitski objected that he did not remember this word and in addition he was not a philologist to give a definition of the notion ‘foul word’.
In his verdict Aliaksandr Dziameshchyk stated that Uladzimir Shulzhytski was guilty of hooliganism, but the case had to be stopped because of the expiry of the term for administrative punishment. That’s why the trial was postponed.
