The results of work with appeals for 2019 have been summarized

The right of applicants to appeal is enshrined in the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On Citizens' and Legal Entities' Appeals". The prosecutor's offices constantly take measures aimed at improving mechanisms for working with citizens on the consideration of appeals. At the same time, extensive explanatory work is carried out on the application of current legislation in this area.

Based on the requirements of Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus No. 489 of October 15, 2007 "On Additional Measures for Working with Citizens' and Legal Entities' Appeals", appeals from citizens and legal entities, regardless of which state body or other organization they are sent to, are initially subject to substantive consideration in accordance with their competence. The list of bodies responsible for considering appeals in various spheres of public life is approved by this Decree.

At the same time, more than a third of the appeals received by the prosecutor's offices are still those that are not within the competence of prosecutors. In 2019, over three thousand appeals were sent to other departments for consideration. In turn, the transfer of appeals for consideration to authorized bodies not only entails certain costs but also sometimes delays the resolution of pressing issues for citizens.

In this regard, we would like to once again draw the attention of our applicants to the need to comply with the requirements of the aforementioned Decree of the Head of State.

More than five thousand appeals were directly resolved by the prosecutor's offices of the region. Over six thousand citizens personally attended meetings with prosecutors.

As before, the largest number of appeals were resolved on issues of inquiry (over 1200 complaints), supervision of legislation enforcement (over 1000 applications), civil judicial supervision (over 900 appeals), actions of investigators of the Investigative Committee (over 600 complaints), and issues of supervision of the legality of court decisions in criminal cases (over 200 appeals).

Of the total number of resolved appeals, 27 percent were satisfied (fully or partially). The high percentage of satisfied appeals is largely due to the significant number

of the appeals considered on issues of filing claims (applications) in general and economic courts in the interests of citizens and legal entities (921 such applications were considered, 603 were granted).

At the same time, a high proportion of granted appeals on inquiry matters is noted in Chashniksky (88.2%), Lioznensky (84.6%), Senno (83.3%), Vitebsk (74.0%), Gluboksky (71.4%), Postavsky (65.4%) districts, on investigation matters – Chashniksky (50%), Beshenkovichsky (40%), Senno (40%), Sharkovshchinsky (33.3%), Vitebsk (31.3%) districts.

The main reasons for justified complaints about the actions and decisions of investigators and interrogators, as before, are the incompleteness of checks on applications and reports of crimes, and the bias of the investigation. In this regard, prosecutors, within the scope of their powers, significantly influence the quality of such checks and the investigation of criminal cases.

A significant number of appeals were considered last year regarding violations of legality in administrative proceedings (127 such appeals out of 441 received were recognized as justified). The main mass of granted appeals concerned disagreement with bringing to administrative responsibility.

The number of considered appeals on issues of compliance with labor legislation has increased, of which more than 40% of such complaints were recognized as justified. The majority of granted appeals in this area concerned violations of deadlines for payment of wages and other payments due to employees by employers.

The increase in the number of resolved appeals regarding violations of legislation on citizens' and legal entities' appeals is noteworthy (more than 110 such applications were considered). At the same time, instances of improper handling of appeals were identified in various bodies and organizations, including executive committees and their structural divisions.

For example, the intervention of the regional prosecutor's office was required for the applicant to receive a response on August 1, 2019, to her application dated June 11, 2019, from the main department for healthcare of the regional executive committee.

In addition, we would like to draw the attention of the

citizens to comply with the requirements of the legislation regarding the content of applications, as well as the methods of their submission.

As practice shows, there are cases when applicants do not comply with the methods of submitting electronic applications (they send them to the wrong email address or post them not in the special section on the official website on the Internet). In addition, many do not comply with the requirements for the content of such applications, which, in turn, may serve as grounds for leaving them without consideration.

Deputy Head
of the Organizational and Control Department
of the Vitebsk Regional Prosecutor's Office Svetlana Zaitseva