D.B. Kadyko filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court to verify the constitutionality of Article 8.11 "Removal from Driving a Vehicle" and Article 9.5 "Initiation of Administrative Proceedings" of the Procedural and Executive Code of the Republic of Belarus on Administrative Offences (hereinafter – the Code), applied in the case of an administrative offence with his participation.
According to the applicant, the said articles of the mentioned Code do not comply with Articles 7, 21 and 22 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus. Such inconsistency, as the citizen believes, expressed in the violation of, among other things, the right to defence with the participation of a defence attorney (lawyer) guaranteed by the Constitution, resulted in illegal bringing to administrative liability.
The Constitutional Court in the adopted ruling indicated that Articles 8.11 and 9.5 of the Code, which are in a systemic connection with other provisions of this Code, do not contain any uncertainty, and there are no signs of a violation of the applicant's constitutional rights to legal assistance and equal protection of rights and legitimate interests in the issue under consideration.
The legislator, by virtue of paragraph 2 of part one of Article 97 and paragraph 1 of part one of Article 98 of the Constitution in conjunction with part one of Article 23 of the Constitution, has the right to specify the content of the right to legal assistance enshrined in Article 62 of the Constitution and establish legal mechanisms for its exercise, the conditions and procedure for its implementation, without distorting the nature of this right, its very essence, and introducing such restrictions that would not be consistent with constitutionally significant interests.
In the system of current legal regulation, the provisions of Articles 8.11 and 9.5 of the Code do not impede the implementation of Articles 7, 21, 22 and 62 of the Constitution and cannot be considered as inconsistent with the principle of the rule of law, the provisions of the Constitution on ensuring rights and freedoms as the supreme goal of the state, as well as violating the right to equality of all before the law and equal protection of rights and legitimate interests without any discrimination and the right to legal assistance.
Establishing the factual circumstances of a particular case, assessing the correctness of the application of certain legal rules taking into account such circumstances are not within the competence of the Constitutional Court, as defined in part 5 of Article 1161 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus and paragraph 2 of Article 161 of the Law “On the Constitutional Proceedings”.
Based on the results of the consideration of the submitted materials, the Constitutional Court refused to initiate proceedings on the case on the individual complaint, since there are no signs of violation of the constitutional rights of the applicant. The constitutional complaint does not meet the admissibility condition defined by subparagraph 1.1 of paragraph 1 of Article 153 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus “On the Constitutional Proceedings”.