Defend the Defense, Daily Brief May 27, 2024

When you find yourself in trouble with the authorities, the best advice is always: find a good lawyer to defend you.

In Belarus, however, this is pretty much impossible, especially if your case has anything to do with human rights.

You see, the Belarusian authorities have used a lethal combination of repressive laws and measures to take over the legal profession. It’s now under total state control.

Authorities have been systematically retaliating against lawyers who defend clients in human-rights-related cases. They’ve revoked at least 140 lawyers’ licenses to practice. In at least six cases, they’ve imprisoned lawyers for representing their clients fighting bogus, politically motivated charges. Obviously, the threat of such consequences is also intended to put others off. But it goes even further. As a new report explains, authorities in Belarus have turned the Belarusian Republican Bar Association into another vehicle of government repression.

In other words, the state is prosecutor, and the state prevents you from presenting an effective defense.

Naturally, this is a disaster for anyone targeted by the state for exercising their rights or for attempting to protect their fundamental freedoms. Belarus has some 1300 political prisoners, and many have suffered serious abuses, including torture, in state custody.

There are some steps outside governments can take to help here. They could – and should – apply targeted sanctions against Belarusian justice ministry officials and leaders of the Belarusian bar who are responsible.

But on top of that, there’s a creative tool available, as well. Given the situation inside Belarus, many of its lawyers are now living in exile, in neighboring Lithuania, Poland, and elsewhere. Countries hosting these exiled lawyers should look into ways of incorporating them into their own legal systems.

The idea is to preserve their professional potential for when democratic change is possible back in Belarus.

Despite all the dictatorship’s repression, Belarusian lawyers have not given up. They are continuing to fight from exile. They deserve protection and support.