Court refuses to reinstate teacher Natallia Illinich at work
Sviatlana Akulich, Judge of the Pukhavichy
District Court, agreed that the dismissal of a teacher of history Natalia
Ilyinich was lawful.
The judge did not take into account the testimony of
Natalia Illinich’s colleagues and her former pupils. She considered the
decision of the schoolmaster, who has worked at school for just four months, to
be more solid and provable than the opinion of the teachers who worked with Illinich
for more than 20 years, and pupils who said that they managed to enter
prestigious high schools of Belarus
only thanks to her lessons.
Bear in mind that in her lawsuit Natallia Illinich demanded to reinstate her at
work, exact from the employer an average monthly wage for the time of enforced
idleness and 20 million rubles in moral damages. She emphasized that by her
decision not to extend the contract with Illinich schoolmaster Natallia Merkul violated one of
the points of the collective agreement, which states that contracts with the employees
who successfully and faithfully perform the duties, don’t violate the labor
discipline and have a long service record must be concluded for 3-5 years.
Illinich worked at the Talka secondary school for almost 26 years. She is one
of the four of the 19 teachers of the schools who have the highest category.
Natalia Illinich insisted that her dismissal and the refusal to conclude a new
labor contract with her are politically motivated, and that the schoolmaster
started posing pretensions to her after the search at her apartment in
connection with the 19 December events. “She was not going to dismiss me. She
wanted to engage me in a number of school events in February and March. But then
everything suddenly changed,” says Natallia. “There is no doubt that it is persecution
for my public position. And other teachers, my
colleagues, confirmed it at court."
