Legislation from 2023 requires amendments to charters
In February 2023, Belarus adopted a law that significantly amended the legislation on public associations and political parties. This law established mandatory re-registration for political parties, which resulted in the loss of registration and the liquidation of all opposition political parties (only four parties supporting the government have maintained legal status). As for public associations, this law did not establish general re-registration, but established that they must bring their charters into compliance with the new law within 1 year of its entry into force.
Public associations are the most popular and widespread organisational and legal form of non-profit organisations in Belarus, based on individual memberships. It is required for a local public association to have at least 10 founders (members), for a national public association - at least 50 founders (members), for an international public association - at least 10 founders (members) from Belarus and at least 3 founders (members) from one or more foreign countries (for each).
Additional requirements from CSOs
The new law introduced a significant amendment in relation to national public associations: it required them to establish branches in all regions and in the capital city of Minsk, which means that each national organisation had to open and register at least six regional and one capital city branch (with no changes to the required number of founders). Those that were unable to fulfil this requirement had to transform into local or international public associations. For many organisations, this additionally required a change of name, as only national public associations have the right to use the words “Belarus” or “Belarusian” in their names.
Due to these and other innovations in the updated version of the Law On Public Associations in 2023, the vast majority of national and international public associations, as well as a significant number of local ones, had to review their charters and introduce the respective amendments. While the updated law did not formally require the re-registration of public associations, it has in practice triggered a procedure very similar to re-registration, since amendments must be filed to the registration authority, examined and formalised by a separate decision of the registration authority (the Ministry of Justice and local regional and capital city departments of justice subordinate to it ).
Number of associations steadily dropping since 2021 due to forced and self-liquidation
According to the Ministry of Justice, there were 1,973 public associations in Belarus, as of 1 January 2024(177 international, 572 national and 1,224 local ones). This is a significant decrease from 2020, when there were 3,025 public associations in the country. The main reason for the drop is the forced liquidation of public associations in a court of law, which has been ongoing since June 2021, as well as the self-liquidation of organisations due to their inability to conduct their activities in the harshly repressive political and legal conditions.
The deadline for filing amendments to charters, in compliance with the updated law, was 4 March 2024. Documents submitted later (March-April) were accepted, and authorities additionally reminded organisations of the need to comply with the law. In May and June, justice authorities intensified the filing of applications for the liquidation of associations that failed to introduce amendments to their statutes. Most of these lawsuits affect national public associations.
In the most recent wave of forced liquidations (April-June 2024), authorities filed lawsuits for the liquidation of 100 public associations, mainly of national status. It is expected that further liquidations will continue since many public associations do not have the resources to continue their activities or hope to operate in the unbearable conditions of today’s Belarus. For many, the refusal to amend the charter is a sort of “euthanasia”. It is important to emphasize that carrying out activities of unregistered public associations (including liquidated ones) is prohibited Under Article 193-1 of the Criminal Code, those who engage in such activities are criminally liable and can be charged with up to two years of imprisonment, a punishment which is applied in practice.
According to the monitoring of open source data carried out by the organisation Lawtrend, the courts of Belarus have liquidated around 800 public associations since July 2021. Additional roughly 450 public associations have decided to self-liquidate.
In just three years, the sector of public associations in Belarus has thus decreased by a third, a trend that is likely to continue.
During this period, many organisations of other organisational forms were also forcibly liquidated - foundations, private institutions, trade unions, political parties, unions of legal entities. In general, taking into account forced liquidation and self-liquidation, the Belarusian public sector has lost 1,700 non-profit organisations in three years. In the same time, Lawtrend recorded the registration of only 160 new CSOs (of which 60 were new public associations). Thus, the number of liquidated associations is 20 times more than the number of newly created public associations. For this and many other reasons, Belarus consistently scores extremely low in the area Freedom of Association, as documented by the CSO Meter Reports.