Human rights defender wants compensation for failure to fulfil UN Committee's recommendations

Human rights activist Leanid Sudalenka filed a lawsuit to the Tsentralny district court in Homel asking compensation for the moral damage due to failure of the authorities to fulfil the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee.

He estimates the damage at a sum of an MP's salaries for a four-year period, Viasna human rights centre reports.

The human rights defender was not registered as a candidate in the 2004 parliamentary “elections”, though he had collected the required number of voters' signatures.

The district election commission and the Central Election Commission (CEC) said he gave wrong information about his place of employment. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the CEC. Leanid Sudalenka filed a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee.

In 2010, the Committee concluded that Sudalenka's right to take part in government through elections had been violated. The Committee said discrimination on political motives took place and obliged Belarus to provide the author with an effective remedy and consider his future applications for nomination him as a candidate for a parliamentary seat in full compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Leanid Sudalenka thinks it's time to demand the state to implement recommendations of the Committee regarding violations of the rights of Belarusian citizens.

“Belarusian officials think the decisions of the UN Committee are non-binding, but it is not so. I cannot foresee how a court will take the lawsuit. In any case, these recommendations in relation to Belarusian citizens will be implemented sooner or later. Someone has to start this work right now,” the human rights defender says.