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President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander G. Lukashenko held a working meeting with Chairman of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus Petr P. Miklashevich

”You have the most experienced and competent people in the field of law – the President noted. – But our Constitutional Court has not yet played the role it should. I think, as we once agreed, the role of the Constitutional Court should be gradually heightened.”

“I would like you to go beyond revealing and accusing imperfections. Heightening the role of the Constitutional Court you should strengthen your influence on relevant subjects of our social life in terms of constitutionality of their actions, in terms of imposing order in the sphere of legal relations. This is very important,”– emphasised the head of the state.

Alexander Lukashenko said he would like the Constitutional Court to take more active part in operation of international organisations.

The President also drew attention to the fact that he would like to discuss the role of the Constitutional Court in the country, issues of improving its activities in the future, constitutional proceedings in a broader composition of both judges and experts from its staff.

As it was noted by Petr Miklashevich, in June 2008 the Decree by the President extended the powers of the Constitutional Court, entitling it to review the constitutionality of laws adopted by the National Assembly before their sighing by the President. “Neither of European constitutional courts has similar plenary powers” – said Petr Miklashevich.

Since then the Constitutional Court has worked a lot to the point. It has reviewed 444 laws adopted by the Parliament. All the laws have been found to conform to the Constitution. The Chairman of the Constitutional Court considers that it speaks for a sufficiently high level of the legislative process in the country, a thorough high-grade drafting of laws, appropriate coordination with all state bodies, respect for the country's Basic Law – the Constitution, its principles and rules.

However, while reviewing the constitutionality certain imperfections of adopted laws have been revealed. The Constitutional Court has stated more than one hundred legal positions in which it pointed to constitutional and legal gaps, clarified constitutional and legal meaning of provisions of laws, worked out the legal positions to be applied by legal practitioners with a view to avoid distortion of constitutional and legal meaning of law rules in law-enforcement.

The President was also informed that last year the Constitutional Court took the decision on assessing the conformity of the Act of the Republic of Poland on the Pole’s Card to international rules and principles. Based on the assessment relevant changes were made to the laws “On Civil Service in the Republic of Belarus”, “On Public Associations” concerning the Pole’s Card available for civil servants.

As for practical application of certain normative legal acts Petr Miklashevich noted that a particular mechanism of indirect individual access to constitutional justice had already been developed in the country. It works through authorised subjects – the government, the House of Representatives and the Council of the Republic, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Economic Court and the President of the Republic of Belarus.

At the meeting was suggested a possible return to the establishment of the Institute of Ombudsman. As the Chairman of the Constitutional Court explained the citizens would be able to appeal to the Ombudsman on critical issues affecting their constitutional rights and freedoms and then the Ombudsman would be able to appeal to the Constitutional Court.