News
On 14 December 2022 the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus adopted in the first reading the draft Law “On Constitutional Proceedings”, which regulates the legislative mechanism for the implementation of the new powers of the Constitutional Court, enshrined in the updated Constitution of the Republic of Belarus

1. Further to the provisions of the Constitution, the draft Law establishes the regulation of constitutional proceedings in cases involving:

the interpretation of the Constitution;

the conformity to the Constitution of laws, edicts of the President, resolutions of the Council of Ministers, normative legal acts of other state bodies;

the constitutionality of draft laws on changes and additions to the Constitution;

the conformity to the Constitution of laws adopted by the Parliament prior to their signing by the President;

the constitutionality of issues put to the republican referendum;

the conformity to the Constitution of the treaties of the Republic of Belarus prior to their entry into force;

the facts of consistent or gross violation of the Constitution by the President;

the facts of consistent or gross violation of the Constitution by the Houses of Parliament;

the constitutionality of the elections of the President, deputies of the House of Representatives and members of the Council of the Republic;

on the citizens’ complaints, the constitutionality of the laws applied to a specific case;

on requests of the courts, the constitutionality of normative legal acts to be applied in trying specific cases by the courts.

2. According to the Constitution, the President, the Presidium of the All-Belarusian People's Assembly, the House of Representatives, the Council of the Republic, the Supreme Court, the Council of Ministers, courts of general jurisdiction and citizens are vested with the right to appeal to the Constitutional Court.

The provisions of the draft law determine the procedure for their appeal to the Constitutional Court.

The procedure for filing a constitutional complaint has been established:

citizens have the right to file constitutional complaints of violations of their constitutional rights and freedoms;

only the provisions of the laws applied to a specific case can be subjected to verification;

all other judicial remedies have been exhausted.

The exhaustion of judicial remedies means that the citizen has used all the possibilities to appeal against court decisions, however, the citizen believes that his constitutional rights and freedoms remain violated due to the unconstitutionality of the law applied by the court in the consideration of the case.

It is established that the complaint must be filed no later than one year from the date of the adoption of the court decision by which all other remedies are exhausted.