Aleksandr Lukashenko holds meeting with Piotr Miklashevich 13 February

    On 13 February President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko met with Chairman of the Constitutional Court Piotr Miklashevich .

    The head of state believes that the role of the Constitutional Court should be raised.

    “You have the most experienced and wisest people in the field of law. But the Constitutional Court does not yet play the role it should. It seems to me that the role of the Constitutional Court should be gradually raised as we agreed once”.

    “I would like you to go beyond detecting and pointing out some drawbacks. Raising the role of the Constitutional Court, you should more vigorously influence relevant subjects of our public life regarding the compliance of their actions with the constitution, regarding the cleanup in the area of legal relations. It is very important,” the head of state stressed.

    Aleksandr Lukashenko said he would like the Court to more actively participate in the operation of international organizations.

    The President also pointed out he would like to discuss the role of the Constitutional Court in the country, improvement of its operation in the future, constitutional proceedings with wider representation of judges and the presidential administration.

    Piotr Miklashevich said in June 2008 the relevant presidential decree enabled the Court to examine constitutionality of legal bills, which are adopted by the parliament before they are signed by the head of state. No other constitutional court in Europe has such authority, Piotr Miklashevich remarked.

    Since then the Court has examined 444 bills passed by the parliament. All the bills have been recognized as compliant with the Constitution. The Presiding Judge believes the fact testifies that the law making process in Belarus is at a high level, bills are prepared properly and are agreed by interested government agencies, the Constitution is respected.

    Yet as the constitutionality of the bills was examined, certain defects were addressed. The Constitutional Court has worked out over one hundred legal views to point out law gaps, to explain the essence of laws, to respond to questions of legal practitioners in order to avoid distortion of the constitutional legal essence of the law.

    The President was informed that last year the Constitutional Court made a decision regarding the evaluation of the Pole Cards Law conformance with international laws and principles. As a result, the civil service and public associations law has been amended to take into account Pole Cards issued to government officials.

    Speaking about the application of legal acts, legal practitioner said the country has a mechanism to enable citizens to indirectly access the constitutional jurisdiction via the government, the House of Representatives and the Council of the Republic, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Economic Court, and the President.

    At the meeting the revision of the possibility of establishing the post of human rights commissioner in the near future was mentioned. Citizens could contact the commissioner regarding matters that affect constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens while the human rights commissioner could then appeal to the Constitutional Court.