Justice Minister lost touch with reality

The recent actions of the Justice Ministry could not be name in any other way as final defeat of the independent Bar.

The head of Minsk City Bar Association was for an attempt to hold an extraordinary meeting of Minsk City Bar Association related to revoking licences of four lawyers of Minsk City Bar Association who defended participants of the rally on December 19 – Aleh Aheeu, Tatsyana Aheeva, Uladzimir Toustsik and Tamara Haraeva – by the Justice Ministry.

“The key personnel of Minsk city bar association finds the current situation critical, and really threatening both to the independence of the bar as the legal institution and independence of advocates individually,” the chairman of Minsk City Bar Association, Alyaksandr Pylchanka said on February 18. On the same day by a decision of the Justice Ministry he was evicted from the Qualifications commission on Advocacy issues of in Belarus.