Economic Court of Minsk Refuses to Consider Appeal against the Ministry of Information

In April this year, human rights activist Pavel Lev­in­au  appealed to the Eco­nom­ic Court of Min­sk with a request to hold the non-nor­ma­tive legal act of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion to restrict access to Charter’97 web­site invalid. How­ev­er, the Eco­nom­ic Court of Min­sk refused to exam­ine the case stat­ing it is out­side the juris­dic­tion of this court.

Lawyer Aleh Aheyeu empha­sizes that the case is illus­tra­tive of what needs to be spelled out in the leg­is­la­tion on mass media.

April 19 the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed the bill intro­duc­ing major changes in the media leg­is­la­tion in its first read­ing. How­ev­er, the pro­posed changes do not include a pro­ce­dure for appeal­ing against block­ing of web­sites, alleg­ing that courts would deal with it any­way.  As one can see  now — they will not.

«Pavel Lev­in­au used all the mech­a­nisms for appeal­ing the deci­sion of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion to block Charter’97. How­ev­er, both branch­es of the judi­cia­ry — the gen­er­al and the eco­nom­ic court — refuse to con­sid­er the com­plaint against the deci­sion to block the web­site. There­fore, it is impor­tant that the new bill includes the pro­ce­dure for appeals,» — Aheyeu says .

In Jan­u­ary, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion blocked access of Belaru­sian Inter­net users to Charter’97 web­site.

Viteb­sk human rights activist and BAJ mem­ber Pavel Lev­in­au believes that the gov­ern­ment vio­lat­ed his right to receive infor­ma­tion by this deci­sion. That is why Lev­in­au sent an appeal to court. Feb­ru­ary 8 Cen­tral­ny court of Min­sk   refused to start pro­ceed­ings on the appeal stat­ing that the case is out­side the court’s juris­dic­tion.

On March 29, Min­sk City Court con­sid­ered an appeal against this deci­sion. Viteb­sk human rights activist explained his rea­son­ing to the high­er court, again. Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists joined the hear­ing, and expressed the opin­ion of the pub­lic dur­ing the pro­ce­dure. BAJ has a uni­vo­cal opin­ion on the mat­ter: the Min­istry has lim­it­ed the right of cit­i­zens to receive infor­ma­tion from Charter’97 web­site, and cit­i­zen are enti­tled to mak­ing appeals against the deci­sion.

How­ev­er, both the rea­son­ing by Pavel Lev­in­au and the opin­ion of Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists fell on deaf ears — the court dis­missed the com­plaint.