Henadz Loika continues legal action over Belarusian language

The Minsk city court will heard the cassation appeal in the lawsuit of activist Henadz Loika against Belinvestbank.

The civil case board of the Minsk city court appointed the date to hear the cassation appeal against the decision of Minsk's Tsentralny district court in the lawsuit of Henadz Loika against Belinvestbank. The hearing will begin at 14:00 on June 5, Viasna human rights centre reprots.

The cassation appeal against the court decision filed by the prosecutor of the Tsentralny district of Minsk will also be heard.

Loika protects his right to use the native language in bank documents.

On April 11, judge Alena Siamak from the Tsentralny district court ignored the arguments of public representative Valiantsin Stefanovich on the bank's discrimination of the Belarusian language and dismissed the claim of Belarusian-language artist and activist Henadz Loika against Belinvestbank. Since 2012, Henadz Loika has been trying to make Belinvestbank provide services to him in Belarusian. The bank refuses to do so referring to “technical reasons” and the bank managers say changing the technical equipment is unpractical due to high costs.

The bank's representative didn't agree with the claim at the trial. The court dismissed the claim saying that under article 17 of the Constitution of Belarus, both Russian and Belarusians are state languages of the country.

Loika insists in the cassation appeal that Belinvestbank discriminate him over the language by refusing to prepare a contract with him in the state Belarusian language. He also asks to bring the judge to account, because she refused to hold trial in Belarusian and call an interpretor for Loika.