Lidziya Yarmosyna: monitoring of verification of signatures “is not based on the law”
The head of the Central Election Commission Lidziya
Yarmoshyna stated this in her answer to the Mahiliou human rights defender
Aliaksei Kolchyn, registered as an observer at constituency election commission
#85.
Mr. Kolchyn wanted to monitor the verification of the signatures in support of
the nomination of candidates, and filed an appropriate application. However,
the constituency election commission gave him a formal answer. In addition, the
commission violated the legislation by giving the answer in the Russian
language instead of the language of the application, Belarusian. As a result,
Aliaksei Kolchyn applied to the Central Election Commission.
In her answer Lidziya Yarmoshyna wrote that the monitoring of the verification
of signatures “cannot be provided as far as it is not grounded on the law”.
Moreover, she wrote that election commissions don't have the status of
organizations and work on a voluntary basis, that's why they cannot violate the
Law “On applications of citizens and juridical bodies”, which means they don't
have to give answers in the language of the received applications.
Human rights defender Barys Bukhel says that if one follows Yarmoshyna's logic,
election commissions can ignore the legislation at all. “One cannot say that
the election commissions work on 100% voluntary basis, as their budgets include
financing for the payment of wages to the people who are freed from their main
work during the election period,” commented the human rights activist.
“Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”
