Belarus to introduce appeal courts

Causational proceeding will be replaced with appeals in criminal cases in Belarus. Appeals will give second instance courts more power to change or cancel court decisions, Radio Liberty reports.

Second instance courts used to be unable to assess circumstances and proofs and could only use the conclusions made by the courts of first instance. Now they will be able to do it on their own.

The changes to the law will come into force on February 27, 2016.

This is a positive change testifying to the refusal from the Soviet court system, human right defender Harry Pahanyaila thinks. It will become possible to add new proofs to cases and they may be taken into account in higher instance courts. Appeal courts have been used in former Soviet republics for a long time but this system has been introduced in Belarus only now, the expert noted.