Interview with Deputy Prosecutor General of the Republic of Belarus, State Counselor of Justice 3rd Class A.V. Dubov

Since their establishment 97 years ago, the prosecutor's offices of the Republic of Belarus have continuously confirmed their special mission in ensuring the rule of law, strengthening legality and law and order.

Daily, making maximum use of their knowledge and experience, regardless of personal time, employees of the prosecutor's offices of the cities and districts of the region ensure the strengthening of legality and compliance with law and order in their entrusted territories, engaging in crime prevention, combating corruption, supporting state prosecution in criminal cases in courts, conducting serious and effective supervisory work in all spheres of life, and improving the legal culture of the population of Vitebsk region.

The main task of a prosecutor is to identify a problem, uncover its root causes, and take comprehensive measures to eliminate shortcomings, thereby restoring violated rights of citizens and the state, and protecting their legitimate interests.

The supervisory agency of the region systematically and effectively implements organizational and practical measures to counter corruption in various spheres.

Prosecutors have suppressed numerous offenses that create conditions for corruption in procurement using both budget funds and own funds of enterprises and organizations, and have identified multiple violations of the procedure for declaring income and property by certain categories of state officials, as well as non-compliance with anti-corruption restrictions.

Based on the results of supervisory measures this year, the prosecutor's offices of the region have submitted more than 120 acts of prosecutorial supervision in connection with identified violations of anti-corruption legislation. At the request of prosecutors, more than 180 officials have been brought to various types of responsibility, including disciplinary – more than 140, administrative – more than 25 (violations in the field of procurement and the procedure for declaring income and property predominate), and material – 17.

Both in 2018 and in the current period, prosecutors promptly suppress procurement procedures conducted by enterprises and organizations in violation of anti-corruption legislation, by canceling illegal procedures.

For example, in 2018at the request of prosecutors, 4 procurement procedures were canceled, 3 of which were carried out at the expense of the local budget. As a result, the expenditure of public funds in the amount of more than 160 thousand rubles (in violation of the law) was prevented.

This year, at the request of the Polotsk district prosecutor, the state procurement procedure of the Polotsk District Executive Committee's education department was canceled, as a result of which the expenditure of budget funds in violation of the law in the amount of 129,000 rubles was prevented, and the guilty official was brought to disciplinary responsibility.

In addition, following the consideration of the prosecutor's submission regarding violations of procurement legislation using own funds, submitted to Polotsk Poultry Farm Unitary Enterprise, members of the enterprise's procurement commission (9 officials) were brought to disciplinary responsibility, and as a result of the cancellation of the procurement procedure, the expenditure of the state enterprise's own funds in the amount of 402,000 rubles in violation of the law was prevented.

Prosecutors have done a great job in protecting the rights of minors and youth.

As practice shows, the supervisory agency should not only check prevention entities but also take measures that will beneficially affect the state of legality, helping families and children.

At the initiative of the regional prosecutor's office, the Vitebsk Regional Council of Deputies adopted a decision last year on additional measures for social support of students.

According to this decision, students of general secondary and special education institutions in the region are granted the right to free travel on public passenger transport from September 1 to June 30.

In the 2018/2019 academic year, this decision was successfully implemented in the region; students have the right to free travel not only to their place of study and back to their place of residence, but also to places of additional employment, sports, culture, etc. Such social support measures allowed for greater involvement of children in additional employment, and thus, genuinely influenced the prevention of their unlawful behavior.

Over many years of protecting children, there have been significant cases where, through the joint efforts of law enforcement and other interested agencies, children were successfully helped.

For example, there was an experience of the prosecutor's office working together with the KGB department for the Vitebsk region, when

as a result of a supervisory inspection, the removal of a child abroad for a fee was prevented, measures were taken to cancel a fictitious adoption, and a criminal case was initiated. The child is now safely living in a foster family.

Also, during the prosecutor's supervision, a child was urgently removed from a family when, for religious reasons, the parents did not allow their minor child to undergo surgery with a blood transfusion, which could have been fatal. As a result, the state confirmed permission for the operation, and the child was saved.

The prosecutors are also focused on issues of ensuring the housing rights of minors.

Thus, the regional prosecutor, in the interests of minor children, filed a lawsuit to invalidate a deed of gift for residential premises, according to which a three-room well-maintained apartment, owned by their mother, was alienated by her as security for a loan agreement. At the same time, the children did not have other well-maintained housing and remained in a socially dangerous situation. By court decision, the transaction was declared invalid, and the children's rights to the residential premises were restored.

Such examples from the law enforcement practice of the prosecutor's offices of the Vitebsk region can be cited further.

Recently, the prosecutor's offices of the Vitebsk region have significantly intensified their work to protect the rights of persons with disabilities.

The problem of realizing the rights of disabled people to an accessible barrier-free environment has been highlighted to local authorities, and measures have been demanded to equip buildings housing educational organizations, medical and social institutions, trade and consumer service enterprises with ramps and handrails for wheelchair users, and to arrange other socially significant facilities and residential buildings.

For example, at the request of prosecutors, the ramp at the Kopeechka grocery store, located near the State Institution "Vitebsk Boarding House for the Elderly and Disabled," was modified; a ramp and railing fences were installed at the approach to the building of the complex reception point in the village of Tarasenki, Vitebsk district; and the proper operation of lifting platforms for delivering persons with disabilities to the pedestrian bridge of the railway station in Vitebsk was ensured.

The interests of the older generation, elderly citizens of the region, are not overlooked.

Thus, at the suit of the prosecutor

the court also invalidated a deed of gift for an apartment, according to which an elderly woman in need of care gifted her apartment to a casual acquaintance. The latter registered ownership of the apartment in her name, renovated it, moved in her furniture, but subsequently, failing to fulfill her obligations to the donor for providing care, placed the woman in a district hospital as a lonely person in need of care. The transaction, made under the influence of delusion, was declared invalid by the court at the prosecutor's suit, and the rights of the elderly woman were restored.

It should be noted that the effectiveness of the supervisory body's work also influences the social and economic development of the region.

Regular inspections are carried out to ensure compliance with legislation in the economic sphere, including during the implementation of state programs, investment, and innovation projects.

Special attention is paid to reducing overdue external accounts receivable and repatriating foreign currency earnings. In economic courts, to protect the property interests of state-owned legal entities, prosecutors filed 12 lawsuits for the recovery of 73.7 thousand Belarusian rubles, 63.2 million Russian rubles, and 93.4 thousand euros.

Measures of prosecutorial response ensured the actual repatriation of foreign currency earnings into the country in the amount equivalent to 1.5 million Belarusian rubles. The regional prosecutor's office initiated 3 criminal cases against the director of a Russian commercial organization for overdue accounts receivable to Belarusian exporting enterprises.

When supervising the implementation of tax legislation this year, significant attention was paid to analyzing the compliance of local executive and administrative bodies with the requirements of regulatory legal acts governing the collection of local taxes and fees, in particular, the dog ownership tax.

The prosecutorial response measures contributed to establishing the registration and accounting of domestic animals, correctly determining the number of taxable objects, the timeliness and completeness of tax transfers to the budget, and intensifying work with debtors.

The work aimed at solving strategic issues of property preservation and disposal in the agro-industrial complex yielded positive results.

region.

Prosecutors regularly conduct on-site inspections to study issues related to ensuring a complex of organizational and technological measures during the production of main types of field work, compliance with soil cultivation technology and agricultural crop cultivation, organization and conduct of work during sowing and harvesting campaigns, and fodder procurement. Checks are also carried out on the restoration and preservation of cattle livestock. Control has been established over the restoration, repair, and operating conditions of agricultural machinery; the reasons for non-restoration, failure of agricultural machines, aggregates, and responsible persons are identified.

It should be noted that after the intervention of the prosecutor's office, almost all identified violations by economic entities and local authorities are eliminated, and measures are taken to restore order at the facilities.

It is difficult to overestimate the efforts of the Vitebsk region prosecutor's office in the field of protecting citizens' rights, primarily labor and social rights, where we truly play a very important role.

Thus, in order to solve the most pressing problem of wage arrears in the region, the full range of prosecutorial response measures established by law has been applied.

It is gratifying to note that if on 01.01.2019 there were 70 enterprises in the region with debts to employees, now we are dealing only with isolated cases of delayed wage payments to labor collectives (as of 01.06.2019 – 3 organizations).

Prosecutors of the Vitebsk region pay increased attention to issues of industrial injuries.

The measures taken by the supervisory body contributed to increasing the responsibility of officials of authorized state bodies, improving the quality of their inspections and monitoring. As a result, for January-May 2019, there was a general trend across the region of a decrease in the number of serious and fatal industrial accidents compared to last year, from 45 to 41 incidents.

Practice shows that often, thanks to the intervention of the prosecutor's office, it is possible to solve long-standing problems affecting public safety issues.

Through the active position of the Vitebsk region prosecutor's officemanaged to resolve the issue of closing traffic on the emergency Polotsky overpass in Vitebsk and putting it up for reconstruction. Currently, the said overpass is being dismantled, and work is simultaneously underway to construct a new bridge structure in its place.

Prosecutors are also monitoring compliance with regulatory construction deadlines for multi-apartment residential buildings. As of the end of 2018, there were 4 such facilities in the Vitebsk region, with construction readiness not exceeding 50% for several of them, and some had been under construction for more than 10 years.

The regional prosecutor's office took appropriate response measures, and currently, out of 4 long-term construction projects, only 1 facility has not been commissioned, which is in the final stage of construction (construction readiness is about 93%).

These examples are the result of truly large-scale and effective work to strengthen law and order in the region.

On the eve of the professional holiday, it is a good occasion to express gratitude to the people who daily stand guard over the interests of individuals and the state: current employees of the prosecutor's office and veterans who have made an enormous contribution to strengthening law and order in the Vitebsk region, passing on their accumulated experience to the younger generation.

I wish prosecutors to continue to be at the forefront of events, to demonstrate high professionalism, reasonable initiative, without reducing efficiency in their work. And most importantly, as before, not to remain indifferent to the misfortunes of others.

May the honorable title of reliable guardians of the Law give you energy and vitality for the effective solution of professional tasks for the benefit of our native Vitebsk region.

Deputy Prosecutor General of the Republic of Belarus

State Counselor of Justice 3rd Class

A.V. Dubov

Photo: Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Belarus