CONTENTS

Official Materials and Decisions
of the Constitutional Court
of the Republic of Belarus

• Judgment of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus of 12 September 2007 No. J-202/2007 "On the conformity between the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus and point "г"of part one of Article 68 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On pension security"

Summary
     The case "On the conformity between the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus and point "г"of part one of Article 68 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On pension security" was subject to consideration by the Constitutional Court as a result of the proposal of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus.
     In its proposal the House of Representatives specified that according to point "г"of part one of Article 68 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On pension security" increase of pension for the citizens only from among the children who were together with their parents in the places of confinement, in exile, expulsion, special deportation, however, according to part one of point 16 of the Provision on procedure of restoration of the rights of citizens who suffered as a result of repressions of twenties-eighties approved by Resolution of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus of 21 December 1990 (with further alterations and addenda), who suffered from political repressions equally with the specified category of children shall be also children who under age found themselves without guardianship of parents, who were repressed on political reasons ill-founded; children of persons executed by shooting or those dead in the places of confinement and rehabilitated posthumously.
     Having analyzed the provisions of the Constitution, legislative and other normative legal acts, as well as the practice of their application, the Constitutional Court found the following.
     Analysis of point 2 of the Provision approved by Resolution of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus of 21 December 1990 and point 2 of Resolution of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus of 6 June 1991 in their interconnection, study of archives cases and materials shall signify about adoption of decisions on repressions also with respect to the children who were sent in exile, expulsion, special deportation as a result of repression of their parents. Children who were with their parents in the places of confinement, in exile, expulsion, special deportation had practically the same hardships as their parents had. The children in question were in the conditions of evident deprivation or restriction of their rights and freedoms. Later on in accordance with the legislation they were found by the competent state bodies as the repressed persons and were subject to rehabilitation, and the relevant documents were issued them with applying to them in practice of point "г"of Article 68 of the Law "On pension security".
     By enlarging the circle of persons who suffered from political repressions, the law maker made no specification in the Law "On pension security" of the right to increasing of the awarded pensions for the children who under age found themselves without guardianship of parents, who were repressed on political reasons ill-founded; children of persons executed by shooting or those dead in the places of confinement and rehabilitated posthumously (paragraphs three and four of part one of point 16 of the Provision).
     Moreover, the Constitutional Court emphasized that the Supreme Council, by taking decision on the issue under consideration without financial and economic grounds and in the form of resolution, but not in the form of the law, violated fragrantly the Constitution and the effective legislation.
     By indicating the collision of two special legislative acts - the Provision and the Law "On pension security", the Constitutional Court made the conclusion that, since in this instance the issue on the right to pension is at the stake, then one should proceed from the content of the norms of the Law "On pension security" as the special legislative act that regulates the relevant relations.
     Due to the stated above, the Constitutional Court found point "г" of part one of Article 68 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus of 17 April 1992 "On pension security" (with further alterations and addenda) that stipulates increasing the rate of pensions for the citizens who were repressed on political reasons ill-founded during repression of twenties-eighties and afterwards rehabilitated, to be in line with the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus.
     The Constitutional Court found also that the practice that took shape since 1 January 1993 and which is based on applying the effect of point "г" of part one of Article 68 of the Law "On pension security" only to the children who were together with their parents in the places of confinement, in exile, expulsion, special deportation, rehabilitated afterwards with granting them the relevant documents shall be in conformity with the goals and tasks of the legislation that regulates the relations on rehabilitation of victims of political repressions, restoration of their rights, pension security and shall meet their factual status of the persons who were repressed ill-founded.
     It is also emphasized that the effective pension legislation stipulates no right to increase of pensions with respect to other categories of children who are found to be the persons suffered from political repressions.

• Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus of 28 August 2007 No. D-201/2007 "On legal regulation of activities of garage co-operatives"

Summary
     28 August 2007 the Constitutional Court has examined the complaint concerning the legality of the Provision on procedure of registration of citizens of the city of Grodno who expressed the will to join the co-operative on building and exploitation of garages for keeping of individual vehicles, organization and activities of these co-operatives approved by decision of the city of Grodno executive committee of 19 June 2002 No. 528 in part of regulation of the right of ownership of members of the garage co-operative concerning the refund of share contribution made by citizens following their expel from the garage co-operative along with the inheritance of the share of the member of the garage co-operative and adopted its decision.
     In its decision on the basis of analysis of the relevant provisions of the Constitution, the Civil Code, other normative legal acts of the Republic of Belarus which are related to the considered issues the Constitutional Court noted that points 17, 18, 19 and 22 of the Provision on procedure of registration of citizens of the city of Grodno who expressed the will to join the co-operative on building and exploitation of garages for keeping of individual vehicles, organization and activities of these co-operatives approved by decision of the city of Grodno executive committee of 19 June 2002 No. 528 are based on the norms of Model Regulations of a co-operative on building and exploitation of open car parks or garages for keeping of vehicles that belong to the citizens approved by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus of 5 August 1977 No. 254.
     At the same time, the Constitutional Court paid attention that Model Regulations of a co-operative on building and exploitation of open car parks or garages for keeping of vehicles contains some obsolete norms and they are not in full in conformity with the effective legislation. In this respect and guided by Article 40, part one of Article 116 of the Constitution, Articles 22, 24 of the Code of the Republic of Belarus on judicial system and status of judges, the Constitutional Court proposes the authorized bodies to take measures to bring by-laws concerning organization and activities of garage co-operatives into line with Constitution, norms of the Civil Code, acts of the President of the Republic of Belarus.

• Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus of 28 August 2007 No. P-217/2007 "On legal regulation of compensation for education in educational institutions that carry out training of officers' personnel"

• Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus of 28 August 2007 No. P-218/2007 "On production of blanks for centralized testing in Belarusian language"

• Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus of 13 September 2007 No. P-221/2007 "To issue of calculation the time period of work in professional fire guard of the Ministry of Internal Affairs into the period of service for awarding the pension"

• Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus of 26 September 2007 No. P-222/2007 "To issue of application of Article 10 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus of 5 May 2005 "On amnesty due to 60th Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945"

On realization by state bodies of decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus

      V.D. Skirda. On execution of decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus in July - September 2007

Citizen lodged an appeal with the Constitutional Court

     On use of nominal (payable to person named) cheques "Zhilye"
     On going abroad of the student during the study hours on private business
     On assigning of graduating students of college to work according to the job one was trained for
     On alimony deduction from the income from entrepreneur activities
     On procedure of taking the measures of influence as reducing premium for complicacy and intensive work
     On the conformity of decision of regional executive committee on dismissal of the worker to the legislation
     On dismissal due to expiration of the term of contract
     On refusal of employer in drawing the documents for awarding the pension for the work with special working conditions
     On freedom of religion
     On realization of the right to freedom of picketing
     On term "documents that prove the quality of goods" used in various articles of the Administrative Code
     On liability for administrative customs offence
     On procedure of payment of social pension for the persons who are in the places of confinement
     On application of the Law on amnesty of 2005

Scientific information

• V.B. Cherny. Customs activities in Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian constitutionalism

Annotation
     The author undertakes the effort in the historical aspect to cover the content and legal nature of customs activity, starting from the point that, in his opinion, connected with this phenomenon issues have direct link with the norms of the constitutional law.
     With the help of the published sources of law under consideration is the development of the term "customs activity" and connected with it customs relations in the legislative acts of the Slavic states - Belarus, Ukraine, Russia - from ancient times till contemporary period. Retrospective analysis of the legislative acts which regulate directly the social relations on the level of the constitutional norms is performed starting from statutes of the Grand Principality of Lithuania.
     The article stresses the state importance of the customs activities which specify legal, economic and organizational bases of the protection of the economic sovereignty and economic security, development of the external economic relations.

• V.I. Samarin. To issue on securing equality of state languages in the Republic of Belarus

Annotation
     The article is devoted to the actual for the Republic of Belarus issue as securing on the state level of the equality of the Belarusian and Russian languages. As the starting point of the research the author considers the necessity of comparison of the language situation in Belarus with the countries, where there is no clear division of the territory into the regions of the population of native speakers of one of the state languages (Ireland, Luxemburg, Malta, Finland). It is noted that the knowledge of both state languages is not obligatory in the Republic of Belarus for every citizen but serves only as additional qualification requirement for several posts. Further the author formulates the "theory of the weak party" for choosing of the state language by the subjects of special legal relationships. In conclusion there is the analysis of the gaps in the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On languages in the Republic of Belarus" in certain spheres of social life and with the help of the comparative legal method the aothor formulates the propositions on the improvement of the mentioned normative legal act.

• T.A. Drozd. Constitutional aspects for protection of labour rights of workers

Annotation
     The article is dedicated to one of the issues of the subjects of the constitutional regulation - issue of the rights and duties of citizens, including labour rights and duties.
     Starting from the postulate on the supremacy of the Constitution among all the other legislative acts of the Republic of Belarus the author stresses that the norms of the legislation which develop, concretize and circumstantiate the provisions of the Basic Law must conform with it.
     While analyzing the labour legislation in the field of the bans on the limitation of the rights and freedoms of a person, on the use of the preferences and privileges which contravene the law, on the discrimination during the exercising by the employee of the protection of the violated rights it is noted the existence of some "lack of coupling", inconsistency between the norms of the Labour Code of the Republic of Belarus and constitutional prescriptions, which in their turn create the indefinite, double interpretation of the norms of the legislation and make the law enforcing process more complicated.
     With consideration of the research the propositions are made on the overcoming of the contradictions between the norms of the legislation by means of making of the necessary alternations and addenda in particular, by bringing of the normative legal acts which regulates the labour relations into line with the Constitution.

• E.V. Chichina. On proportion of part working time to the length of labour leave

Annotation
     The author puts ahead the hypothesis according to which the time of labour of the part time workers could have the proportionate projection not only on the size of the salary but also on the other labour rights. In particular, it is specified the practicability of introducing of such legal norm according to which the size of the main labour leave of the part time employed worker shall be defined proportionally to the worked out time, but not less than the time period stipulated by the state minimum of 24 calendar days.
     Taking into account the theoretical aspects of the science of the labour law the conclusion is made that the agreement on part time employment shall result not only the relevant reduction of the norms of working time, but also the norms of work (in those situations, when they are used as the additional measurer of the work).

• S.V. Korzik. Peculiarities of methodical approach to study of constitutional regulation of social relations concerning religion

Annotation
     The article gives the theoretical justification of the methods of the scientific cognition of the constitutional regulation of the relations connected with religion. It is indicated that the necessity in this is caused by the needs of the research of the political and legal preconditions, stages, content and character of the radical changes in the constitutional regulation of relations on religion, implemented in the sovereign Belarus in post Soviet period, by the needs to reveal the influence of the mentioned constitutional changes on the becoming and development of the national legislation on the freedom of conscience, religion, religious organizations.
     The conclusion is made that the approach to the research of the development of the legislation on the freedom of conscience, religion and religious organizations from the point of view of the methodology of the functional analysis does not challenge the subjective factors of the influence on the forming of the legislation.
     In its essence the methodology of the research of the constitutional regulation of social relations on the religion is a reflection in complex of devices of research of the inner logics of the process of introducing in the Constitution of the goals and tasks of the state in the field of the mentioned relations, principles of its mutual relations with the religious organizations.

• S.G. Vasilevich. Legal principles of administrative law

Annotation
     The article notes the important role of the legal principles in forming of the legal prescriptions which reflect the objective needs of the society in the legal regulators. Attention is paid to the historical aspect of the development of the general principles of law.
     It is noted the novel of the Administrative Code of 2003 in comparison with the Administrative Code of 1984 in fixing of the principles of the administrative liability (Article 4.2 of the mentioned Code).
     The author justifies the point that the list of the principles the content of which is covered in parts 2-9 of Article 4.2 of the Administrative Code can be added by other principles, for example, by the principle of constitutionality.
     The legal principles fixed in the Administrative Procedural Code of Executions are also covered by the article. In particular, it is paid attention to the improper formulation of such a principle as publicity. It is challenged the validity of setting up of some principles as principles of execution of punishment, but the specification of the measure of penalty. In this connection the propositions are made on the improvement of the legislation in the sphere in question.

• N.S. Gubskaya. Referendum on ecologically significant issues: problems of legal stipulation

Annotation
     The present article is devoted to the issues of legal regulation of the referendum on the ecologically essential matters, the analysis is made of the constitutional and other legislation of the Republic of Belarus, of the Russian Federation, there were researched the peculiarities of holding of referendums of republican and local levels.
     It is noted that in comparison with other forms of participation of the public in the process of making the decisions on the essential ecological issues (public ecological expertise, public hearings etc.) referendum on the ecologically essential matters has such advantages as lawfulness and finality of the results.
     The author formulates and justifies the proposition on the expediency of passing on the referendum only one and not several questions on the concrete type of activity, on the envisaging in the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On the protection of the environment" of the right of citizens to participate in the referendums on the ecologically essential issues and the right of the public associations to bring the proposition on holding of the referendums on the issues of the protection of the environment.

Scientists of Belarus

     S.G. Drobyazko - 85

International relations of the Constitutional Court

     G.A. Vasilevich. Constitutional justice in Belarus and in Azerbaijan: steps towards closer co-operation

     Memorandum on co-operation between the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus and the Constitutional Court of Azerbaijan (Baku, 10 July 2007)

     V.I. Zhishkevich, A.V. Karavai. On participation in international conferences on the issues of securing human rights (Athens, 14-18 September 2007)