Bialynichy District Court turns down Valery Vusik's lawsuit

On 12 December the Bialynichy District Court considered the lawsuit of the social activist Valery Vysik against the Ministry of Finances of the Republic of Belarus and the Bialynichy District Police Department seeking the reimbursement of the state fees and the cost of the lawyer's services in his administrative case.

Valery Vusik asked the court to exact the money from the state institutions on the basis of Article 13-1 of the Procedural Executive Code of Administrative Offences (reimbursement of damage caused to a person or entity by illegal actions of the court or other institution which conducts administrative proceedings). In particular, he asked to exact 2.2 million rubles from the Bialynichy DPD, including two state fees 400,000 rubles and 1,8 million rubles for the lawyer's services.

Bear in mind that on 16 September Judge of the Bialynichy District Court Aksana Zahorskaya ruled to drop the administrative proceedings against Valery Vusik, rejecting the police reports drawn up on him. The reports were compiled in February 2013 by the local policeman Siarhei Karytkin and accused Mr. Vusik of libel against the head of the farm “Lebiadzianka” Piatro Bialou inthe newspaper “Mahiliouski Vybar” and at the website zapraudu.info, in the article “What has changed for a couple of years at the agricultural combine “Lebiadzianka”, and a violation of Article 17 of the Law “On Mass Media” by distribution of the newspaper “Mahiliouski Vybar”.

Upon the review of the administrative case, Mr. Vusik sued for reimbursement of costs incurred. This time, the lawsuit was considered by the headof the Bialynichy District Court, Valiantsina Paulava. After lengthy proceedings she rejected the lawsuit.

Human rights activist, Barys Bukhel, who helped Valery Vusik to defend his rights at numerous trials, described the situation:

"The hearings were postponed several times on a variety of grounds. The lawsuit was eventually considered on 11-12 December. Probably, the judge could not understand what to do in this situation, since it was the first case of the kind considered in the Mahiliou region since the ammendment of the Procedural-Executive Code of Administrative Violations this summer. In fact, the judge justified her refusal to grant Mr. Vusik's claim for reimbursement of expenses lawyer'sservices by a collision between various legal acts. Judge Paulava also referred to the fact that in the ruling about the discontinuation of the administrative case against Mr. Vusik, Judge Zahorskaya didn't state that the actions of the police were illegal. To my mind, this is obvious from the judgment.

The Court also refused to recalculate the expenditures with regard to the inflation and compensate his transport expenditures, referring to the fact that it was not provided by the current legislation. It also refused to order compensation of the state fee, as its return could be obtained outside court proceedings. Mr. Vusik immediately wrote and submitted an application for the return of the state fee, which will soon be returned to him.”

According to Valery Vusik, he will appeal the verdit of the Bialynichy District Court at the Mahiliou Regional Court. Human rights activist Barys Bukhel says that in the near future they will prepair a request to the Bialynichy District Court to be receive the reasoning of the court's decision to refuse compensation for the incurred expenditures.