MINSK, 21 April (BelTA) – Debts to the state budget must be collected in full by enforcing court rulings. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko made the statement as he heard out a report from Justice Minister Sergei Khomenko on 21 April, BelTA has learned.
Aleksandr Lukashenko wondered about the performance of the court rulings enforcement service, which had been established as an independent division a considerable time before. “How are they doing today? What do they lack?” he said.
“And another question in connection with what was mentioned during the latest government conference – the enforcement of court rulings,” Aleksandr Lukashenko pointed out. “Debts to the state budget must be collected. As a general you should understand better than anyone that it must be settled. It is a punishment pronounced by the court.”
“Court rulings must be executed. This is why it is necessary to clean it all up and demand execution by the end of the year. If they don't execute rulings, you know what to do,” the head of state stressed.
The problem of enforcing court rulings was also raised during a recent government conference held by the head of state to discuss the enforcement of law and order. Prosecutor General Andrei Shved said that not all the final rulings of Belarusian courts are executed. The percentage of debt collection remains below 10%. The reparation of damages to the state in line with writs of execution is only 3.6%. “While criminals may owe over Br300 million to the state budget, about Br11 million has been collected from them. The state cannot afford forgiving such debts in today's complicated conditions,” the prosecutor general stressed.
After the meeting with the president the justice minister told reporters that the head of state had given instructions to improve the quality of interaction between court bodies, ruling enforcement bodies, the Investigative Committee, the Office of the Prosecutor General, and the State Control Committee in order to resolve the problem of debt collection from court rulings. Sergei Khomenko said: “If tight interaction is established between them, I am convinced the problem can be resolved if a differentiated approach is used during investigative actions, if the court pronounces a verdict depending on certain characteristics of the legal person or the natural person, and the court ruling enforcement service acts correspondingly.”
In his words, the situation is more complicated with collecting debts from legal persons because court officers are not supposed to undermine the economic stability of agricultural enterprises or industrial enterprises.
“Just like in any other system court officers have their own share of professional shortcomings. But as the proverb goes: only those who do nothing make no mistakes,” the justice minister said. He pointed out that after the court pronounces its verdict, some citizens resort to all kinds of methods to dodge punishment. “It is particularly mean when people refuse to pay alimony to their own kids,” the official is convinced. “If we look at the moral side, he should execute the court ruling willingly. But when a court officer gets involved, the moral side of the debt is pictured negatively.”
