“Decree on social parasites” violates at least five articles of Constitution

Lawyers consider that Decree №3 is to be repealed immediately.

The list of laws and international norms, violated by this document, has been forwarded to the “chamber of representatives.” Euroradio has been informed about that by a lawyer of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Dzmitry Charnykh.

“We think that we can say that Decree №3 contravenes at least 5 articles of the Constitution,” he said.

1. Article 41 Part 4 of the Constitution of Belarus. It guarantees the right to labour for Belarusians, but prohibits compulsory labour. That is, it recognizes the right of Belarusian citizens not to work.

2. Belarus had joined the International Labour Organisation, ratified the Convention concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour, 1930 (No.29), the Convention concerning the Abolition of Forced Labour, 1957 (No. 105). According to the Convention №29, forced labour is “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”.

The same is stated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. They were ratified by Belarus.

3. Decree №3 cannot be justified by the obligation of Belarusian citizens to “take part in financing of state expenses,” indicated in Article 56 of the Constitution. Lawyers of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee call that substitution of notions. “The Constitution and the Tax Code mean obligatory payment of state taxes from certain types of activities,” they say. In other words, citizens of Belarus must pay state duty when going to court or pay customs duties, but in no way a tax on social parasitism.

4. Article 101 of the Constitution. According to it, Decree №3 is temporary and is adopted “in case of emergency”. However there is not a word about “an extreme necessity or emergency” in the text of the Decree, which is also a violation.

5. Article 67 of the Law “On Laws and Regulations” does not allow the leader of the state to pass retrospective ordinances and decrees. The same is said in Article 101 of the Constitution. Dzmitry Charnykh, a lawyer, specifies that retrospective effect is allowed only in the case when a new law eases the situation for citizens. It happened for example with the new Criminal Code adopted in 1999.

6. The Constitution again: by his legislative acts the leader of the state “does not have a right to limit constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens.”

7. Article 56 of the Constitution binds “exclusively citizens of the Republic of Belarus to take part in financing of state expenses”. We remind that Decree №3 obliges to pay for “social parasitism” also those people of the country who do not possess citizenship of Belarus.

8. Article 32 of the Constitution obliges parents to raise their children. According to experts of the BHC, Decree №3 limits possibilities of parents, making them go to work as soon as their child turns 7.

9. Article 32 of the Constitution again. It is also obliges children to take care of their parents. Article 100 of the Family Code of Laws on Marriage directly obliges children to support their disabled parents. Lawyers attract attention to the fact that there is not a word about persons who have to take care of their parents and do not work for that reason the Decree “on social parasites”, and such people are not granted a remission of taxation.

10. The right to privacy is also stated by the Constitution. The BHC believes that collection, processing and storing of information about “social parasites”, while a database about them is created, could result in a leak of personal data, and attracts attention to the fact that the text of Decree №3 does not guarantee protection of this personal data.

The lawyers have sent the address to “deputies”, where they call Decree №3 unconstitutional. “According to the law, the text of Decree №3 should be sent by the administration of the leader of the state to the chamber of representatives in three days after it was signed. Deputies are to approve it. So we are trying to influence their decision in some way, and name all contradictions,” Dzmitry Charnykh, a lawyer, said.