This is the conclusion reached by the participants' evaluation Monitoring the participation of NGOs and the public in decision-making at the local level. "Monitoring results Vitebsk activists shared with journalists and human rights activists.
Leonid Gorovoj expert Vitebsk public association "Local government and society", said monitoring during the last 6 months of 2014 was held in Vitebsk and in Orsha and Postav areas. Materials for analysis were the official sites of local authorities and documents relating to attempts interaction NGO activists with local authorities.
"Local authorities Vitebsk, Orsha and Postavy districts do not seem very eager to cooperate with citizens and representatives of NGOs. Executive committee and local councils are not provided legal mechanisms that could be used for the announcement of some problems. For example, citizens and NGOs can not make any sharp question was put to a meeting of the authority, or influence the essence of the decision on a particular issue."
According to Leonid Gorovoy, the authorities are so remote from ordinary citizens that do not even consider it necessary to introduce the latest with their decisions. Although the right to receive accurate and comprehensive information has every citizen of Belarus, even official sites are in no hurry to report what is going on "in power". For example, on the site of the Vitebsk City Council for the entire 2014 was published only two decisions of the authority, and both dated from the first half. On the site there is a section of the Orsha District Executive Committee "official publication", specifically designed for the publication of decisions. However, it is empty. With regard to the Orsha district council, the site in the appropriate section presents a unique solution - and that for the year 2012. As if in 2014 the deputies did not work and did not decide anything. The site Postavsky executive committee also published just one decision, dated 2014 year.
It turns out that the authorities are in themselves and are not interested in cooperation with the locals. But the locals can not take the initiative to attract the attention of the authorities. One of the most significant fact is the inability to exercise the right to hold public events, according to the Vitebsk coordinator of the "For Freedom" Christopher Zhelyapau:
"The state and local levels nominally exist mechanisms of influence on the local authorities through the expression of public opinion - for example, during pickets, meetings and other mass actions. However, in practice this right and members of NGOs and ordinary citizens can not use: according to the decision of Vitebsk executive committee, the executive committee of Orsha, Postavy district executive committee created such conditions that the application for the event does not satisfy. requires prior service contracts police, doctors, public utilities, and those, in turn, to conclude contracts are eliminated. Affect the power to change their solutions, making them feasible, as you can not: for the decision of Vitebsk City Hall about the organization and holding of mass actions, we always respond that it is perfectly in the legal sense, and so changes in it are not needed."
Monitoring participants came to a disappointing conclusion. Local authorities have no fixed laws of duties to report to the public, to consult with local residents about the next steps in the policy, organize discussing issues and so on. A citizens' desire to attract the attention of the authorities is not enough to make it come true: in 2009 in Vitebsk and regional executive committees were not allowed any mass action when the initiative came from civil society activists. And all attempts to exercise their right to public expression of opinion ended judicial punishment for holding unauthorized mass actions.
Viasna Human Rights Center
