Prosecutors have filed 237 lawsuits in the public interest

One of the forms of protection of the rights and legally protected interests of the Republic of Belarus, its administrative-territorial units, as well as legal entities is the prosecutor's appeal to the court with a statement on initiating a civil case within the court's jurisdiction.

The analysis of the prosecutors' work for 9 months of 2019 has established that prosecutors are taking active measures to compensate for damages caused to the state and legal entities of state ownership as a result of violations of labor protection legislation, property theft, mismanagement, failure to ensure property safety (including livestock, agricultural machinery, etc.), illegal dismissal, and violations of environmental legislation.

Thus, prosecutors have filed 237 lawsuits in the interests of the state for a total amount of 276,538 rubles, and 691 lawsuits for an amount of 1,053,966 rubles – in the interests of enterprises of state ownership.

In particular, prosecutors of cities and districts have filed 26 lawsuits for an amount of 127,586 rubles to recover funds spent on the education of graduates of higher and secondary educational institutions.

For example, the prosecutor of Gluboksky District filed a lawsuit to recover 9,438 rubles from a graduate of the educational institution "State Professional Lyceum of Agricultural Production" spent on her education at the lyceum in the specialty "public catering" with general secondary education. After graduating from the educational institution, the defendant was sent to work in her profession as a cook to fulfill the required one-year employment period. However, she did not arrive at the place of work and was not officially employed. She did not report any valid reasons for not being employed to the educational institution.

In case of violations by the employer of the dismissal procedure, which led to the employee's appeal to the court for protection of the violated right and the court's decision to reinstate the employee in her former job in the previously held position, prosecutors file lawsuits against persons guilty of issuing illegal dismissal orders to recover funds paid to illegally dismissed employees.

Thus, the prosecutor of Verkhnedvinsk district filed a lawsuit to recover 1,364 rubles paid to an employee as a result of his illegal dismissal, established by a court decision to reinstate him at work. The enterprise director violated the procedure for dismissing an employee during staff reduction, issued an illegal order for the employee's dismissal, and therefore, by court decision, the specified monetary payments were recovered from him, and the prosecutor's claim was satisfied.

According to Art. 142 of the Civil Procedure Code, court costs, from payment of which the plaintiff was exempted, are recovered from the defendant for the benefit of the state in proportion to the satisfied part of the claims.

In case of satisfaction of the prosecutor's claims, the state duty for the benefit of the state is subject to recovery from the defendant. However, during the generalization, cases of non-recovery of state duty from defendants were identified. Thus, one of the district courts, when satisfying the prosecutor's claims for the eviction of defendants from commercial residential premises of the state housing stock, in violation of Art. 142 of the Civil Procedure Code, did not recover from them the state duty in the amount of 3 basic units from each, in connection with which the prosecutor of the region filed 3 supervisory protests against the specified court decisions regarding the recovery of state duty, which were satisfied.

5 court decisions of the specified category were appealed in appellate order, of which 3 were based on the prosecutor's protests. The protests were deemed justified and satisfied.

Thus, the appellate protest of the prosecutor of Vitebsk city against the court decision, which denied the prosecutor's claim in the interests of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Belarus against V., S., I. on the recognition of property rights and the invalidation of the transaction, was satisfied.

As established, by the court verdict, V. was convicted under Part 1, 2 of Art. 430, Part 1 of Art. 14, Part 2 of Art. 430, Part 1 of Art. 209, Part 4 of Art. 424 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus to 7 years of imprisonment with serving the sentence in a strict regime correctional colony with confiscation of property. According to the court verdict, V.'s property, including an expensive car, was confiscated.

benefits to the state revenue. According to the sales contract dated November 28, 2015, I. sold, and V. purchased the specified car for 840,000 Russian Federation rubles. Subsequently, on 02.08.2016, between I. and S. (the mother of the accused V.), with the participation of an intermediary in the Russian Federation, a sales contract was concluded, the subject of which was again the same car. Based on this contract dated 02.08.2016, the car was registered with the traffic police in the mother's name.

The fact that V. is the owner of the specified car is confirmed by the court verdict, which established that the specified car was actually used by V., and not by his mother. He repeatedly drove the vehicle, maintained it in technically sound condition, carried out expensive repairs, and paid insurance premiums. I. denied the fact of concluding the sales contract for the disputed car dated 02.08.2016.

Taking into account that the ownership of the disputed car ceased to belong to I. after its alienation under the sales contract dated 28.11.2015, the judicial board for civil cases of the Vitebsk Regional Court issued a new decision in the case, satisfying the prosecutor's claims to declare the car sales contract concluded between I. and S. and registered with the traffic police, void.

The filing of lawsuits by prosecutors is an effective tool for protecting the interests of the state, legal entities of state ownership, as well as the legitimate rights of citizens. 

Senior Prosecutor of the Department for Supervision
of Compliance with the Law of Judicial
Decisions in Civil Cases
of the Regional Prosecutor's Office Maria Dukhnova