Alesia Sadouskaya: We To Bring Officials, Even Ministerial Ones, To Justice

An activist from Maladzechna continues to fight the tyranny of the authorities.

Alesia Sadouskaya, a member of the REP trade union, demands that the Maladzechna Department of Education, the district hospital and the Executive Committee paid her 75,000 rubles in compensation for emotional damages caused by the false diagnosis of Sadouskaya, which was used as the basis to give her daughter a status of "left without parental care" child.

On March 23, the Maladzechna district court will hear Alesia Sadouskaya's lawsuit about damages which the authorities caused her and which equal to 75,000 Belarusian rubles. Ministry of Finance, Maladzechna District Executive Committee, Education Department and the Central District Hospital act as defendants in the case, praca-by.info writes.

Events took place in 2015, but it took more than two years to recognize them as violations. Until now, none of the guilty officials has even apologized. Moreover: no one was brought to justice.

According to the claim, the Central District Hospital negligently treated Alesia Sadouskaya's right to non-disclosure of medical secrecy. And it provided information about her diagnosis to the Maladzechna Department of Education, or rather, its head Drapeza I., who is a person not authorized to receive such information on the criteria that the Education Department indicated in the request to the hospital: "In order to resolve the issue of the performance of parental responsibilities by the mother." And, having received a response from the hospital, the education department forcibly divided the mother and the daughter for eight months. In addition, the head of the Maladzechna Psychoneurological Dispensary disclosed the same information in an interview with the media (Alesia Sadouskaya has no claims to Radio Svaboda).

The head of education Drapeza I., not being a specialist in the field of psychiatry, relying solely on her personal subjective assessment, made conclusions about the possible danger that the mother Alesia Sadouskaya was to her daughter. The official, having a false idea of her powers, sent a request about Alesia Sadouskaya to the hospital – as about an obligor, whom the woman had never been. Her family has never been in a socially dangerous situation. Having received a response from the hospital, Drapeza I. filed an application with the executive committee. She enclosed in the application the illegally acquired information about Sadouskaya's illness.

The Executive Committee did not check the legality of this conclusion and, in its negligence, assigned the status of "left without parental care" to a child with a living mother.

The head of education, apparently with the support of the executive committee, organized the removal of the child from Alesia Sadouskaya through a civil suit in a judicial procedure. The girl lived in a foster family for eight months.

On March 5, a preliminary court session took place.

Alesia Sadouskaya shared her impressions after the trial:

– It was shocking that the hospital and the Department of Education used a list of diseases, having which parents cannot perform parental responsibilities, not for its intended purpose – to compensate for losses caused by the obligated persons – but to remove children from their families. Literally a couple of years ago, child protection services of Maladzechna have already lost the lawsuit for such a position, and the Ministry of Health gave explanations.

But the impunity of those responsible is evident. As you can see, the Maladzechna officials have not learned that lesson. Therefore, the issue of setting additional demands and attracting additional respondents from the control bodies up to the ministries for inaction, adoption of ineffective measures of response and creating conditions allowing the repetition of already known violations are being discussed. There is nothing more to add, because representatives of, perhaps, not one social organization will defend my position in court.