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Human rights activist hopes for objectivity of chairman of Supreme Court

2013 2013-06-11T18:33:11+0300 1970-01-01T03:00:00+0300 en https://spring96.org/files/images/sources/gousha-siargej-baranavichy.jpg The Human Rights Center “Viasna” The Human Rights Center “Viasna”
The Human Rights Center “Viasna”

On 8 June Baranavichy human rights activist Siarhei Housha filed an appeal to the Head of the Supreme Court of Belarus Valiantsin Sukala against the verdict of the Baranavichy court of 21 August 2012 according to which he was punished with a fine for the alleged use of foul language in a public place. The activist notes that the Brest Regional Court and the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus didn't grant his appeals against the illegality of administrative punishment.

The only reason for the fine is the appeal of the head of a constituency election commission in Baranavichy, T. Latushava, in which she stated that S. Housha insulted her and members of the commission by swearing during the commission's sitting. Mr. Housha was present at the sitting in as an election observer.

As noted by Siarhei Housha, the judges considered his appeals formally and non-objectively, without checking all evidence in the case. The human rights defender believes that the administrative case against him was fabricated and the report of administrative violation, drawn up on him, was composed with violation of requirements of Art. 9.1 of the Process-Executive Code of Administrative Violations, as far as there was no sufficient evidence that would indicate the presence of signs of an administrative offense under Art. 17.1 of the Administrative Code. This was recognized even by the officer of the Baranavichy City Police Department who drew the violation report after listening to an audio recording to Housha's conversation with Tatsiana Latyshava from the original source, Housha's voice recorder and transferring the record from the recorder to two computers in his office in the presence of witnesses.

In his complaint to the Head of the Supreme Court the Republic of Belarus the human rights activist notes that courts also didn't take into account the requirement of paragraph 18 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Belarus on 30 September 2011, under which one-sided, incomplete and biased investigation of the circumstances of the administrative offenses take place if the court has not examined all the evidence that might indicate a lack of offense. The human rights activist said that all the judges refused to order a linguistic and phonoscopic examination of the recording of Housha's conversation with the member of the constituency election commission No. 5 where no foul words can be heard.

At the end of his complaint Siarhei Housha thanks the chairman of the Supreme Court for the cancellation of the previous decisions of the Brest Regional Court in his case and asks him to abolish the ruling of the Brest Regional Court of 21 March 2013 and the decision of the court of the Baranavichy district and the city of Baranavichy of 21 August 21 and to drop the charges against him.

The human rights activist hopes that this time the chairman of the Supreme Court will take a lawful decision.

 

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