First trial of satellite dish owner to take place in Hrodna
The owners of a satellite dish wrote an appeal asking how to legalize their antenna. The family received a letter that informed them that they had to pay a fine and to remove their dish. Maxim and Volha Harmash have been watching satellite TV since 1998. The law allowed installing satellite dishes without any special permission at that time. However, everything changed in 2007 – a new code obliging to get the authorities’ permission in order to install “dishes” was adopted. Hrodna housing and communal services department used it, says Maxim Harmash:
“Zelyanbud” installed our “dish” in October 1998. We received a notification that we had violated the Administrative Code of 2007 at the end of 2008. The housing and communal services department had to organize a preventive conversation with us because we were “infringers”. They advised that we should “legalize” the satellite antenna in the architecture department of the city executive committee”.
Volha, Syarhei Harmash’s wife, sent an appeal to the department asking how to legalize the satellite dish. The family received a reply that informed them that they had to pay a fine and to remove the dish because it had not been included in the project of the house that was built in the 1950s. However, Syarhei thinks that the floodlights recently installed to illuminate the house were not included in the project either.
The family went to law. The trial has been appointed on February 5. Maxim Harmash says that the judge will become an infringer too if he orders to remove “the dish”.
Maxіm Harmash: "A law able to make citizens’ life worse cannot be applied post factum! The Code of 1998 was in power when the dish was installed. And there was nothing about “dishes” in it.
Department #6 demanding to remove the dish mentioned the recent order obliging them to liquidate all satellite dishes installed without any permission.
Department #6: "It is necessary to ask the architectural department for permission in order to install a satellite dish. If they allow you to do it, you will have to inform you housing and communal services department about it. It is because we have been ordered to get rid of all old satellite dishes. If you have the permission, we will not remove the dish. However, nobody knows whether you can get the permission or not. Replanning, installation of a metallic door swinging outward – anything that is not in you flat – needs a special permission now”.
Surprisingly, other Hrodna departments of housing and communal services allow inhabitants to install dishes without permission. They only have to receive their neighbours’ permission. Department #21:
"If your neighbours agree, you can install a satellite dish”.
ERB has decided to ask the deputy chief architect of Hrodna Uladzimir Holapau what the order mentioned by the sixth department was about. Uladzimir Holapau’s answer was brief:
"I do not know".
“Zelyanbud” installed our “dish” in October 1998. We received a notification that we had violated the Administrative Code of 2007 at the end of 2008. The housing and communal services department had to organize a preventive conversation with us because we were “infringers”. They advised that we should “legalize” the satellite antenna in the architecture department of the city executive committee”.
Volha, Syarhei Harmash’s wife, sent an appeal to the department asking how to legalize the satellite dish. The family received a reply that informed them that they had to pay a fine and to remove the dish because it had not been included in the project of the house that was built in the 1950s. However, Syarhei thinks that the floodlights recently installed to illuminate the house were not included in the project either.
The family went to law. The trial has been appointed on February 5. Maxim Harmash says that the judge will become an infringer too if he orders to remove “the dish”.
Maxіm Harmash: "A law able to make citizens’ life worse cannot be applied post factum! The Code of 1998 was in power when the dish was installed. And there was nothing about “dishes” in it.
Department #6 demanding to remove the dish mentioned the recent order obliging them to liquidate all satellite dishes installed without any permission.
Department #6: "It is necessary to ask the architectural department for permission in order to install a satellite dish. If they allow you to do it, you will have to inform you housing and communal services department about it. It is because we have been ordered to get rid of all old satellite dishes. If you have the permission, we will not remove the dish. However, nobody knows whether you can get the permission or not. Replanning, installation of a metallic door swinging outward – anything that is not in you flat – needs a special permission now”.
Surprisingly, other Hrodna departments of housing and communal services allow inhabitants to install dishes without permission. They only have to receive their neighbours’ permission. Department #21:
"If your neighbours agree, you can install a satellite dish”.
ERB has decided to ask the deputy chief architect of Hrodna Uladzimir Holapau what the order mentioned by the sixth department was about. Uladzimir Holapau’s answer was brief:
"I do not know".
