Belarus to Follow Russia’s Example and to Improve Procedure of Citizens’ Indirect Access to Constitutional Justice

In the Republic of Belarus there is a draft bill on constitutional court proceedings in the making. It is aimed to improve the procedure of addressing the Constitutional Court in order to examine normative legal documents for compliance with the Constitution of Belarus, said Presiding Judge of the Constitutional Court of Belarus Piotr Miklashevich at the press conference in Minsk.

In the Republic of Belarus there is a draft bill on constitutional court proceedings in the making. It is aimed to improve the procedure of addressing the Constitutional Court in order to examine normative legal documents for compliance with the Constitution of Belarus, said Presiding Judge of the Constitutional Court of Belarus Piotr Miklashevich at the press conference in Minsk.

According to him, “at present the Constitutional Court is finalizing a draft law on constitutional court proceedings, which provides for legal regulation of this procedure”. It is necessary that “indirect access of citizens to the constitutional justice has a concrete legal mechanism for implementation”.

Piotr Miklashevich reminded that “Belarusian Constitution makes no provision for the right to individual constitutional complaint, which means that a citizen cannot address the Constitutional Court directly and raise the question of the constitutionality of this or that normative legal document”.

The Presiding Judge of the Constitutional Court noted that in Russia “the right to address an individual constitutional complaint straight to the Constitutional Court is guaranteed at the constitutional level”.

At the same time he reminded that Belarusian Constitution “provides for an indirect access: our citizens have the right to initiate an examination of the constitutionality of one or another normative act through authorized entities”.

Piotr Miklashevich stressed that the current practice “is not unique to our country, as it is common in many European countries, including France, whose Constitution we took as an example, and patterned, among others, its clause on constitutional justice”.

The Chairman of the Constitutional Court said that “out of the 57 initiations of legal action addressed to the Constitutional Court with the request to examine normative legal documents for compliance with the Constitution of Belarus, none has been received in accordance with the established procedure”.