In his speech the Chairman of the Constitutional Court told of the contents of the Message to the President of the Republic of Belarus and the Houses of Parliament of the Republic of Belarus “On Constitutional Legality in the Republic of Belarus in 2012”, adopted by the Constitutional Court on January 22, 2013. Thereat he emphasised the following points.
According to the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus the individual, his rights, freedoms and guarantees to secure them are the supreme value and goal of the society and the State. This substantially designates the content of political, economic, social and legal relations, specified and protected by the Constitution.
Such values as democratic, social, ruled by the law State, democracy and the rule of law, justice and equality, parliamentarism, constitutional economy are also specified in the Constitution. They are in systemic interrelationship and demand the necessary balance on the process of democratic development of the society and State.
The constitutional values exert an organising influence on appropriate spheres of public relations. They are guidelines, standards, directions for state authorities and public officials, citizens and the society in whole.
In the past year the Parliament has adopted a number of laws, regulating the economic relations, including the Laws on state innovative policy and innovation activities, on commercial secrets, on bankruptcy; relations in housing, social and cultural spheres (first of all it should be mentioned the new Housing Code). A number of laws are aimed at improvement of law enforcement and judicial activity, defence, combating terrorism and extremism.
1. In 2012 the Constitutional Court in the exercise of obligatory preliminary review examined the constitutionality of 113 laws, adopted by the House of Representatives and approved by the Council of the Republic – before they were signed by the President of the Republic of Belarus.
All the reviewed laws were recognised to be conforming to the Constitution. At the same time the Court formulated more than 20 legal positions in its decisions aimed to clarify the constitutional and legal meaning of certain rules, to elaborate of efficient legislative mechanism of implementation and protection of rights and freedoms of a man and a citizen.
The legal positions of the Constitutional Court guide the state bodies at the consistent and systematic implementation of constitutional principles and norms, development and protection of constitutional values in their activities.
2. In 2012 the authorised subjects, defined in Article 116 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus (the President of the Republic of Belarus, the House of Representatives, the Council of the Republic, the Supreme Court, the Highest Economic Court, the Council of Ministers), had not requested the review of constitutionality of normative legal acts.
This demonstrates both the achieved due interaction among the subjects of rule-making activities and process of constitutionalisation of the society and State. Observance of the Constitution becomes a rule, the norm of life, including due to the legal positions of the Constitutional Court.
3. In 2012 73 applications had been submitted to the state bodies authorised to address the Constitutional Court directly (68 – from citizens and 5 – from organisations). The authorised subjects decided that the issues, specified by the citizens, do not contain sufficient grounds for proposals to the Constitutional Court.
The general courts had also not adopted any decision based on part two of Article 112 of the Constitution, according to which if the court, while considering a case, concludes that a normative legal act does not conform to the Constitution, it takes a decision according to the Constitution and arises the issue of consideration of that normative act to be unconstitutional according to the provided procedure.
The appropriate regulation of the procedure of considering and deciding on initiative applications of citizens and organisations to the authorised subjects is necessary, according to the Constitutional Court, for the provision of full implementation of the rights of citizens and organisations to indirect access to the constitutional justice.
At the present time the President of the Republic of Belarus submitted the draft law “On Constitutional Proceedings” to the Pariament. The procedure of indirect access of citizens to the constitutional justice is specified by it.
4. 772 applications of citizens and legal entities had been submitted to the Constitutional Court in the past year. Basing on certain applications the Court had adopted a number of decisions, directed at elimination of legal uncertainty, gaps and conflicts of law in legal regulation aiming to avoid possible violations of rights and freedoms of citizens, provision of their implementation and protection.
Thus, decisions pointed out the necessity:
to fill the constitutional and legal gap in legislative regulation by fixing the right of graduates from the institutions of higher and other education to be exempted from reimbursement of the funds, spent by the State for their training in case they voluntary entering military services under the contract;
to eliminate the legal uncertainty in regulating relations in the sphere of protecting property interest of creditor, who’s monetary funds were unlawfully used by the debtor;
to eliminate the collision in legal regulation of the procedure and amount of reimbursement of travel expenses in business trips to employees, etc.
5. 13 decisions of the Constitutional Court executed in 2012. The legal positions stated there had been taken into account by the legislator:
the rights of citizens of the Republic of Belarus, including residents abroad, to purchase flats (houses) under a purchase-sale contract in any community in Belarus regardless of the place of permanent residence is stipulated in the Housing Code, adopted on August 28, 2012; legal regulation of the procedure of short-term rent by citizens of home accommodations on systematic basis is also provided;
a longer term of power of attorney to receive monetary funds from the bank account of a citizen, to which his pension is transferred, is specified if the Law “On Pension Provision”;
issues of waiting list in payment of expenses that emerge in the process of liquidation of a debtor and that are directly bound to him are regulated in the Law “On Economic Insolvency (Bankruptcy)”.
The Decision on April 7, 2011 “On the Position of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus on the Act of the Republic of Poland on the Pole’s Card” found its further implementation. Limitations for the deputies of the House of Representatives and members of the Council of the Republic are established. They are excluded the right to receive the documents from the foreign states that provide for benefits and advantages in connection with political, religious views or nationality, as well as use such benefits and advantages, unless otherwise follows from the international treaties of the Republic of Belarus.
In general the state bodies conduct the consistent work on execution of the decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Belarus by adopting new normative legal acts, as well as making necessary alterations and addenda to the legislation in force.
The Constitutional Court, assessing the constitutional legality in 2012, found that there were no substantial violations of constitutional principles and norms in law-creating. At the same time the legal mechanisms, providing for the full implementation of constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens in all spheres of life of the society and State, keep elaborating and improving on the legislative level.
The Constitutional Court notes that the constitutional values and aims become legal standards and main directions in legislative activities.
The Message of the Constitutional Court pays attention to the necessity of ensuring the principle of predictability in legislative policy as an essential condition for the confidence of participants of public relations in the firmness of their legal status. This principle is also important for the building of trust to the legislative acts and their unconditional implementation. It is necessary to introduce the legal monitoring – as a systematic activity of state and other organisations – of assessment of national legislation effectiveness, in order to increase efficiency of the rule-making and law enforcing activity, ensure appropriate quality of normative legal acts and their implementation.
The rights and freedoms of an individual, justice and equality are the most important components of the constitutional order basis, and at the same time they are fundamental constitutional values. The guarantees of their implementation represent primary constitutional goal, as well as the duty of the State.
Rights and freedoms of individual, being the main guideline in life activities of the society, are acting as its basis. That stipulates the necessity to improve the level of social legal awareness, to foster constitutional culture, to constitutionalise social relations.
In the view of the foregoing the Constitutional Court deems that not only state bodies and officials – who are responsible for the constitutional legal order – should contribute to the strengthening of constitutional legality, but also citizens, organisations, institutions of civil society. That will ensure the supremacy of law in all spheres of life of the society and State, consecutive development and strengthening of the Republic of Belarus as a democratic, social and rule-of-law State.