Brest: Official Doesn’t Understand Belarusian

06.10.2006.

Source: www.charter97.org

Today Brest Maskouski Borough Court has considered a complaint of the public activist Andrei Sharenda against the illegal punishment of him by the administrative commission of Maskouski borough of Brest. On 26 July A.Sharenda and several activists were handing out informational leaflets about a meeting before an authorized meeting, which was later banned in the last minute. The activists were detained and fined from 30 000 to 100 000 Belarusian rubles as leaflets allegedly ‘contained information aimed at damaging the state and public order’.

During the court proceedings A.Sharenda asked to conduct the case in Belarusian. After a 15-minute talk the judge agreed, while the representative of the administrative commission L.Malevich told that in case the judge and A.Sharenda would talk in Belarusian, she wouldn’t understand and wouldn’t be able to represent the commission’s interests.

The court started looking for an interpreter for Ms Malevich (though she said that she had been learning the language and even read Karatkevich). As it turned out, an interpreter for L.Malevich would be available only in a month, which the sides can use to reach an agreement.