The judiciary

The judicial power in the Republic of Belarus is vested in courts of law. The judicial system of the Republic is made up of courts of law of three tiers. On the top of the judicial pyramid is the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus. It is the highest appellate court of the country. The Supreme Court includes separate divisions for civil, criminal and military cases. It has original jurisdiction in cases involving foreign dignitaries and those in which the state is a party. It also may decide most serious criminal cases. The Supreme Court is headed by the Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus who is appointed by the President on the consent of the upper house of the National Assembly - the Council of the Republic. The Supreme Court judges are nominated by the President on the advice of the Chairman and must be approved by the Council of the Republic. Once approved, all members of the Court hold office for life.

The middle tier of the republican judicial system is made up of the six regional courts and the Minsk Town Court. These courts deal with major criminal, civil and military cases and hear appeals from inferior courts. The decisions of the regional courts may be appealed only to the Supreme Court. All judges of the regional courts including their chairmen are nominated by the President on the recommendation of the Chairman of the Supreme Court and the Minister of Justice for life.

At the bottom of the judicial pyramid are district and town courts. Most litigations start in these courts. District and town courts decide both criminal and civil cases and deal with administrative matters involving disputes between individuals as well as between individuals, legal entities and government departments. The decisions of district and town courts may be appealed to the corresponding regional court and further up to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus. All judges of these inferior courts are appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Chairman of the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice. The first term of office of an inferior court judge is five years; all other judges are appointed for life.

Control over the constitutional compliance of normative acts in the country is fulfilled by the Constitutional Court.

The presidency

The President of the Republic of Belarus is the Head of the State. He is the guarantor of the Constitution, the rights and freedoms of people and citizens. The term of office of the President is five years.

The constitutional qualifications for the Presidency are relatively simple.

Any natural-born Belarusian who is 35 years or older, permanent resident of the Republic of Belarus for not less than ten years before the election and possessing the right to vote, may be elected to the office. The President is elected in nation-wide election based on free equal direct suffrage by secret ballot. Originally, the Constitution provided that one person couldn’t hold the presidency for more than two terms. On October 18^th, 2004, this provision was amended at the nation-wide referendum thus establishing no limits to the number of terms one may run for the Presidency.

Under the Constitution, the President possesses wide executive, legislative and judicial powers. He has the power to appoint and dismiss the Prime Minister, his deputies and all other ministers – heads of the executive departments, decides on the resignation of the Government and its members. He manages all official contacts with foreign governments, appoints ambassadors, diplomats, consuls and ministers, representing the nation abroad, and has the right to make treaties with foreign powers. The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and the Head of the Security Council of the Republic of Belarus.

He has the power to appoint the dates of Republican Referendums and regular and extraordinary elections to the House of Representatives and local representative bodies, dissolves both Houses of the Parliament in cases defined by the Constitution, appoints eight members of the Council of the Republic and six members of the Central Commission on Elections and Republican Referendums, forms, abolishes and reorganizes the President’s Administration. On the consent of the Council of the Republic, the President appoints the Heads of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the High Economic Court. With the approval of the House of Representatives, he appoints the Prime Minister, Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Economic Court, the Head of the Central Commission on Elections and Referendums, the General Procurator, the Head and members of the National Bank Executive Board. The President also appoints six Judges of the Constitutional Court and all judges of lower courts. On the notification of the Council of the Republic and on the grounds defined by law, he relieves of their duties the Heads and Judges of the Constitutional, Supreme and High Economic Courts, the Head and members of the Central Commission on Elections and Referendums, the General Procurator, the Head and members of the National Bank Executive Board.

The President is also able to grant pardon to the persons convicted of crimes through the exercise of the prerogative of mercy. He signs all Bills which have passed all stages and have been approved in both Houses of the National Assembly, and may veto or refuse to sign them. The President has the power to issue presidential orders, directions and decrees which have the force of law.

The President has the right to resign any time. If so, his resignation must be accepted by the House of Representatives.

KHATYN

Almost everybody knows the tragic fate of Khatyn, the village that was burnt down together with its inhabitants. In March 1943 old people and teenagers, women with babies in their arms – all were driven by the fascists into a large shed and then the shed was set fire to and 149 people were burnt alive.

Joseph Kaminski, the blacksmith of the collective farm, was among those people doomed to death. The par­tisans found him nearly dead in the ashes of the burnt village. He survived, the only one of all the villagers…

Khatyn… High above rises the bronze figure of a man carrying his son’s body in outstretched arms. Near the monument there is a wreath cut in white marble with the words “Good and kind folk, remember us”. Good and kind …

Ash gray logs and chimneys are on the places where the houses used to be. 26 chimneys and 26 bells toll sadly day and night, night and day. A memorial in commemoration of all the victims of nazism on Belarusian land. Not just a memorial, it’s a cemetery, a graveyard of 136 Belarusian villages that shared the fate of Khatyn. Endless rows of graves, graves with black urns. 136 urns contain the ashes and bear the names of the burnt down villages, which could not return to life and disappeared from the map of Belarus.

Gray marble slabs read: Trostenets, Masyukovshchina, Azarichi, Brest, Minsk, Vitebsk, – 260 death camps, 260 death mills. 2,200.000 Belarusians fell in battles, they died in death chambers or in death camps. There are four openings in the polished plane surface of the black cube. Over three openings green birches rise, over the fourth the Eternal Fire burns. A symbol of eternal sorrow and irreplaceable loss; every fourth citizen of Belarus perished.