On 30-31 October 2009 Minsk hosted the International Seminar “European Convention on Human Rights and Criminal Justice”. The forum was held jointly by the Secretariat General of the Council of Europe, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus, the republican NGO “Legal Initiative” and NGO “Association for Comparative Law Research”.
The seminar were attending judges of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, courts of general jurisdiction, officers of the General Prosecutor’s, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Centre for Legislation and Law Research, Belarusian State University, the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, advocates, representatives of legal sciences and civil society.
In the greeting of Deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Court Alexander V. Maryskin it was emphasised a timely character of issues under discussion as well as underlined the fact that many of the international rules and standards of individual rights and freedoms judicial protection had been represented in the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus.
The foreign experts Mr McBride, Vice-president of the Scientific Committee of the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union, and Mr Murdoch, Glasgow University professor, enlightened the participants on the E. C. H. R. application in criminal case-law of the European Court of Human Rights.
Mr Stanislav Y. Danilyuk made a presentation “Access to Justice in Court Practice of the Republic of Belarus” where brought into view that European standards of criminal justice are consistently implemented in Belarusian national legislation while the main industry codes that rule court proceedings, have undergone the expert review.
The forum participants also pointed out the realisation of the whole complex of legal, operational as well as material and technical measures to provide for a wide individual access to justice in the Republic of Belarus.