Punishment with no trial for petty hooliganism offences in Belarus?
A draft legislation suggests that police officers in Belarus be granted powers to make sentences for some offences right at a police station.
Human rights defenders turn attention to this claim in the draft bill "On making amendments and additions to the Code of Administrative Offenses and the procedural Code of Administrative Offenses", received by the House of Representatives.
According to expert of the center of law transformation Lawtrend Darya Katkouskaya, it is suggested that the policemen should be given the right to decide on the punishment for the administrative offenses, most commonly used against civil activists, like petty hooliganism or drinking alcohol in public places.
Darya Katkouskaya: "They would detain a person in the street, take to the police department and offer to admit guilt and pay the fine in order to avoid an administrative detention. The only option that these changes prescribe is that the court will deal with the case only if a detainee does not admit guilt. This means, the police would do their best so that all the people detained under these articles admit guilt before the trial."
It is known that the mentioned offenses are punished with not just fine, but administrative detentions as well. The draft bill does not clarify whether the policemen would have a right to send a person tot eh detention center without trial. However, if so, Euroradio's interlocutor says, it would contradict the international obligations signed by Belarus: according to them, only the court can send a person to prison.
Photo: www.svaboda.org.
