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Activists discuss possibility of dialogue with authorities about need of national human rights ombudsman

Belarusian human rights activists held a meeting in Minsk on Tuesday to decide whether they should start a dialogue with the authorities about the need to establish the institution of national human rights ombudsman.

Earlier this month, the National Center for Legislation and Legal Studies of the Presidential Administration sent out a letter to concerned government agencies and organizations inviting them to express their opinion as to whether Belarus needs the institution and their proposals for its possible functions and powers.

Only one human rights organization, the Human Rights Center, so far has received a letter from the National Center for Legislation and Legal Studies, Alena Tankachova, chairperson of the board of the Minsk-based Legal Transformation Center (Lawtrend), which initiated the meeting, noted in her opening speech.

However, there should be some reaction to the letter from the human rights community, Ms. Tankachova said.

The attempt to start a public discussion is the government's response to a call for establishing the position of ombudsman that was included in the UN Universal Periodic Review on the initiative of human rights defenders, Ms. Tankachova said.

While discussing the possibility of a dialogue in this area, one should not forget that prominent human rights defender Ales Byalyatski is currently in prison, and that a liquidation suit against a prisoners' rights group called Platforma was upheld a week ago, she said.

Ms. Tankachova noted that Belarusian human rights defenders had always been in favor of establishing an ombudsman's office in the country.

There has been recurrent talk at the government level of the need for a national human rights ombudsman for some 18 years, but there has been no progress on the matter.

In January this year, Pyotr Miklashevich, chairperson of the Constitutional Court, told reporters that the Court “generally supports the idea of establishing the institution of the human rights ombudsman because this would really be an additional guarantee of the protection of the rights and liberties of our citizens.”

“A draft law to this effect was in the works at some time in the past. I think we’ll soon return to this issue at the government level,” he said.

A year earlier, on January 26, 2011, Mr. Miklashevich said at a news conference that the Constitutional Court would support a proposal to establish the position of ombudsman. The office of the ombudsman would be an “additional tool to ensure the constitutional guarantees of citizens’ rights,” Mr. Miklashevich said at the time.

In the early 2000s, the Belarusian authorities did draft a bill that would establish the position of human rights ombudsman, which was seen as a condition for restoring Belarus' Special Guest status in the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, suspended since 1997.
However, the bill, which would expectedly provide for the ombudsman (human rights commissioner) to be appointed by the president, was never submitted for debate.

In the spring of 2008, Alyaksandr Lukashenka said in his annual address to the nation and the National Assembly that Belarus did not need any ombudsman.

“Even without a human rights ombudsman, we ensure our citizens’ rights of life, security, a normal job, and of being able to feed their families,” the Belarusian leader said.

The establishment of an ombudsman's office would not soften the West's criticism, he noted. "They find fault with us not because we have less human rights protection than the West or the East," he said. "For example, we didn't go to another country to kill people and hang its leader; our aircraft carriers are not patrolling in another country’s coastal waters. What could be more important than the right of life?"

“No matter how many various offices we may institute, we’ll still be treated in the same way, that is, until we start acting like mongrels catching crumbs that fall off the lord’s table,” Mr. Lukashenka said. //BelaPAN