Belarusians might be allowed to appeal against all court decisions

“The bill presented today is aimed at improving the quality of criminal justice and granting people the right to appeal against all court decisions without exception, including decisions of the Supreme Court,” the head of the Supreme Court said.

According to him, the bill consists of two parts. The first part provides for completing the introduction of an appeal mechanism to courts of all levels, including the Supreme Court. The second part seeks to introduce new institutions to criminal court proceedings and to improve subsequent stages of legal proceedings - the stage of judicial review, when the lawfulness of verdicts is checked after they enter into force.

“Over the past ten years, we have been consistently and very cautiously introducing the institution of appeal into criminal court proceedings. This institution reviews the lawfulness of a court decision that has not yet entered into force. As a rule, every fifth court decision is appealed. Yet, the bulk of judicial verdicts, about 80%, remain out of sight of the appellate review. However, this can be done at the next stage of reviewing the lawfulness of court decisions, that is when verdicts have already entered into force,” the chairman of the Supreme Court emphasized.

Valentin Sukalo explained the difference between an appeal and a cassation in simple terms. The former involves reviewing the lawfulness of court decisions that were made, but were not entered into force. There are ample opportunities to check court decisions at the level of an appellate instance, without additional referral of the case to the court. This is the fundamental difference between an appeal and a cassation, as the latter provides for reviewing court decisions that have already entered into force (maybe even be enforceable).

The institution of appeal has already been fully introduced in Belarus, Valentin Sukalo noted. As a result, the number of repeat court hearings has recently reduced to the minimum. Of the 7,500 cases considered on appeal in 2021, only 45 were sent to district courts for a new trial.

From 2012 (when certain elements of the appeal were introduced into the criminal process) to 2021 (when the institution of appeal was fully introduced into the criminal process), the number of overturned verdicts of first instance courts decreased 13 times.

The new bill suggests extending the institution of appeal to the decisions of the Supreme Court (at present they are final and not subject to appeal and come into force immediately). For this, as proposed in the bill, a special board of appeal will be created in the Supreme Court. “We have worked out a mechanism for creating this court instance, its structure. It will not require additional budgetary funds, structural changes, it will be created using available Supreme Court judges,” the head of the Supreme Court explained.