New Law on Mass Assemblies Comes into Force :: Charter'97 :: News

On August 29 there entered into legal effect the Law “On mass assemblies in the Republic of Belarus”. The document was passed by the House of representatives on June 5 and got approved by the Council of the Republic on June 30. The law was elaborated for the implementation of some previous presidential decrees on mass actions. The new law restricts the demands to the organizers of mass events and raises their responsibility for maintaining public order, reports BelaPAN.

In particular, the document allows for a shutdown of political parties for one-time flagrant violation of law, such as infliction of a 10thsd basic units’ damage upon the state or organizers’ failure to ensure public order and security of the action’s participants and passer-bys, entailing damage or posing threat to the citizens’ life or health.

The law entered into effect not without the president’s disagreement over its content. The head of state, for instance, removed from the document the provisions, reading that the sphere of its influence doesn’t spread onto the religious events, as well as meetings with voters and assemblies, organized by the president and deputies of the national parliament and the local councils of deputies. This measure is explained by its inclusion into the Law on deputies’ status and the Law on religious organizations.

The Law also doesn’t include the norm, allowing the executive bodies in case of emergency to give permission for the implementation of mass events prior to the established term, that is 15 days, though no sooner that five days after the concomitant application’s submission. They also annulled the provision, obliging the courts to consider complaints over the Law on mass events in three-days time, as far as the order and terms of judicial hearings are established in other legislative acts.