Ministry of Justice denies registration for BCD party for fifth time

The organising committee to create the Belarusian Christian Democracy party (BCD) received a refusal from the Ministry of Justice to the application for registration.

Charter97.org learnt it from the BCD press service.

It has been the fifth unsuccessful attempt to register the party.

The reply of the Ministry of Justice, which was published by the BCD press service, names the following reasons for the refusal: failure to provide a number of documents relating to the founding congress and errors in personal information of some founders (wrong place of work, residence, absence of home and work phone numbers). Four persons named as founders of the party informed on the phone or in written they hadn't taken part in founding congresses and hadn't proposed delegates for the congress, according to the Ministry of Justice. Two persons said they hadn't put their signatures, one of the founders was mentioned in the list twice.

The BCD notes some founders of the party refused to confirm their signatures under pressure and threats from local officials. The organising committee says other reasons are “minor errors that cannot doubt the registration of a political party”.

“Even if we exclude the persons named by the Ministry of Justice, the list of BCD founders contains more than 1000 persons necessary for the state registration,” the BCD press service reports.

The BCD party was denied registration for the fifth time. The number of refusals rose to 19, taking into account the times when public associations of Christian Democrats submitted documents for registration.

“It shows that Belarus doesn't have any fundamental democratic norms. The 'election' is only a smokescreen that cover authoritarianism and lawlessness in all areas of life – political, economic and social,” the BCD organising committee says.

Christian Democrats say the denial of registration is illegal and plan to appeal against it to the Supreme Court, but note they don't believe Belarus has free and independent courts.