Human rights defender Valiantsin Stefanovich continues struggling against violation of civil rights by police and procuracy

Human rights activist Valiantsin Stefanovich still hopes to draw officers of the Pershamaiski District Police Department of Minsk and the Pershamaiski District Procuracy to legal account for violation of his legal rights, as well as the rules of considering civil applications.

Having addressed the prosecutor of the Pershamaiski district of Minsk and the Minsk City Procuyracy, both of whom essentially avoided the legal assessment of the facts that were set forth in his complaint and failed to take adequate steps to bring the guilty to the legal account, statutory liability, Stefanovich filed a complaint with the prosecutor of Minsk.

Bear in mind that in the night of 20 December Valiantsin Stefanovich and his friends and acquaintances were groundlessly detained in a private apartment in Minsk and taken to the Pershamaiski DPD under armed guard. He was kept there for 3.5 hours without getting any charges. At the same time, the answer of the Minsk City Procuracy dated 18 March 2011 argues that no violations of the current legislation were committed during it and reports that he hadn’t been detained within the framework of Article 108 of the Criminal Process Code.

However, the police failed to present any other lawful grounds for the detention which are listed in Article 24 of the Law On the Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus. That’s why Mr. Stefanovich considers these actions of the police as illegal and requests the prosecutor of Minsk to identify the persons responsible for violations of law, as far as the procuracy of the Pershamaiski district in fact evaded from the direct assessment of actions of the police officers.

The human rights defender also requires the prosecutor to assess the actions of employees of the
Pershamaiski District Procuracy which grossly violated the requirements of Article 9, part 3 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus On appeals of citizens, which directly prohibits to forward complaints of citizens to the government agencies and other organizations whose actions are appealed. In spite of this, on 4 January the Pershamaiski District Procuracy forwarded his complaint to the head of the Pershamaiski District Police Department of Minsk.

The Minsk City Procuracy evaded from giving a direct answer to this question, citing a reference to the Disciplinary Regulations of Internal Affairs, which, according to human rights activist, was inappropriate because the statute contains one exception, which allows forwarding complaints of citizens to the bodies whose actions are appealed – if the solution to the issue is within the exclusive competence of these bodies.

Valiantsin Stefanovich also draws the attention of the Minsk prosecutor to the gross violation of the terms of consideration of his appeal by officers of the Pershamaiski District Procuracy of Minsk, as far as this fact was completely ignored in the answer of the Minsk City Procuracy to his address.

Meanwhile, as it follows from the letter of the Pershamaiski District Procuracy of Minsk, on 4 January his address of 29 December 2010 was forwarded to the Chair of the Pershamaiski District Police Department of Minsk for holding a duty check-up. It is quite interesting that the answer of the Pershamaiski DPD is dated 10 February, but was submitted to the applicant only on 25 February (which is witnessed by the post seal), almost two months after the application.

However, according to Article 10 of the Law On appeals of citizens, the legal term for answering is not longer than 1 month.

The human rights defender hopes that the Minsk prosecutor, who is assigned to protect the law, will appoint an additional prosecutor's review of the facts that are set forth in the complaint, and the police and procuracy officers who committed the law violations will be punished according to the law.