Charhinets Believes that Belarusian ‘Chamber’ Is More Independent Than US Congress :: Charter'97 :: News

The chairman of the permanent committee of the “council of republic” of the “national assembly of Belarus” on International Affairs and National Security, Mikalay Charhinets, is categorically against the statement of the opposition that the country has a “pocket” parliament. The BelaPAN infromes that he told so at a press conference on January 17 on interparliamentary and international activities of the higher “chamber”.

As an argument the politician told about the activities of the “council of representatives” since January 13, 1997, the date of the beginning of work of the bicameral “parliament”. As said by him, 46 out of 875 bills submitted to the “national assembly” by the president or the government on behalf of the president, have been rejected. This index of the Belarusian “parliamet”, as Mikalay Charhinets underlined, is much higher than the US Congress has.

The head of the parliamentary commission is sure that at present the “national assembly” of Belarus has enough rights. He even tried to make fun of the topic, saying that the Belarusian parliament does not need the right to pass a document relating the US, analogous to the Belarus Democracy Act.