Lawmakers admit draft internent legislation confronts with Belarus Constitution
“Regardless of our desire, the draft was subjected to expert evaluation”, said the House of Representatives’ working group.
This draft legislation is assumed to be the most controversial during the parliament’s fall session, because it will outline how the government wants to regulate the internet.
MPs are expected to debate the draft every Wednesday. This time, they focused on the recommendations by international experts. The lawmakers were clearly impressed.
“The first time, I read the expertise with excitement. The second time, I read it thoroughly. It was only after I read for the third time when I realized what we could copy for ourselves. It feels good that apart from negative assessments, the experts pointed to the positive aspects,” Zinaida Karobchanka, an expert with the parliamentary commission confessed.
Eventually, lawmakers crossed out the most controversial Article 22, which bans the web sites from disseminating information that:
- aims to change the constitutional order; to incite war, racial ethnic and religious hatred; to degrade national honor and dignity;
- aims to degrade the honor, dignity and business reputation of citizens and legal entities;
- other information which is banned by the laws of the Republic of Belarus
According to Mikhail Darashevich who runs the web-based project e-belarus.org, it is hard to understand why this article is needed, if the same issues are regulated by civil laws. Experts also said that the article could be used for censorship in the internet.
“This article was dangerous, also because any criticism could be interpreted as the degrading of the national honor and dignity. It is worth differentiating only two types of illegitimate information: child pornography and racism. All the rest should be allowed. Any complaints must be resolved in courts”, Darashevich said.
It is noteworthy that parliamentarians admit that “some articles contradict a common sense, several legal standards and even the Constitution”.
Questions also arose over Article 26 in the draft law on information which deals with the accessibility of information upon request. Under the article, the information received upon request, could not be used for commercial purposes. MPs assured that they revised this provision. The information received upon request will be available for commercial use. In general, legislators reduced the draft by 11 articles.
But experts remain vigilant. Mikhail Darashevich is confident that discussions should continue in order to end up with a good law.
“These people are not God-chosen. They are elected by the other people so that they seek an advice from them. The next step: we need to see the new draft legislation, under the law on the access to information. Even if they say that they have amended something, they could eventually still come up with something totally different”.
Knowing the traditions of our parliamentarians who often pass laws in the two readings without debates, experts’ worries are justified.
