Judicial Power

The judicial power in the Republic of Belarus belongs to courts.

The Court structure in the Republic of Belarus is determined by the law. The judicial power is exercised by general, economic and other courts envisaged by the legislation of the Republic of Belarus.

General courts in the Republic of Belarus include the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus, Minsk city, district (town) and military courts. Economic courts include the Supreme Economic Court of the Republic of Belarus, economic courts of oblasts and other courts with an equal status, economic courts in towns and districts.

In cases, stipulated by the legislation of the Republic of Belarus, specialised courts may be formed within the system of general and economic courts, such as juvenile, family, administrative, land, tax or other courts.

Creation of emergency courts is prohibited.

Justice in the Republic is exercised by courts on the basis of the Constitution and other standard laws adopted in conformance with it. Cases are considered in court collectively, in some cases envisaged by the law, individually by a sole judge.

The Constitution establishes the right of courts to raise the issue of considering certain standard laws as unconstitutional if, in the course of considering specific cases, the court comes to the conclusion on non-conformity of die law to the Constitution.

In exercising justice, the judges are independent and are subordinated to the law only. Interference into the activity of judges engaged in judicature is prohibited and punishable by the law. Judges may not be engaged in entrepreneurial activity or perform any other paid jobs, except teaching and research.

The control over correspondence of standard laws in the State to the Constitution is performed by the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court gives evaluation on correspondence of standard laws to the Constitution upon the request of the President, Chamber of Representatives, Council of the Republic, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Economic Court and the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus.

Procurator's Office. Committee of State Control

The Procurator's Office of the Republic of Belarus is an integrated and centralised system of bodies headed by Procurator General. It performs control over the exact and uniform execution of the laws, decrees, resolutions and other standard enactments by ministries and other bodies subordinated to the Council of Ministers, local representative and executive bodies, enterprises, organisations and institutions, public associations, officials and citizens. It also monitors the abidance by the law in investigating crimes, correspondence to the law of court judgements on civil, criminal cases and cases of administrative offences.

The Fundamental Law establishes the right of the Procurator's Office, in cases stipulated by the law, to carry out preliminary investigation and support state prosecution in court.

The competence, organisation and procedure of activity of the Procurator's Office bodies are determined by the legislation.

State control over the execution of the Republic's budget, the utilisation of state property, and the execution of the decrees of President, Parliament, the Government and other state bodies which regulate the state property relations, the economic, financial and tax relations in conformance with the Constitution is exercised by the Committee of State Control formed by the President.

A unified budget and financial, tax, monetary and credit and hard currency policy is pursued on the territory of the Republic of Belarus. The state budget system includes the national and local budgets. The budget revenues come from taxes determined by the law, other mandatory payments and other revenues.

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