Dear Minister of Justice, Dear Representative of the EC, Mr. Holzapfel, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, good afternoon.

It is a great pleasure and honor to me to address you today at the final meeting of the Human Rights and Justice Project.

In our UN work we build partnerships with one most important objective – to deliver tangibleresults. Results that make all parties satisfied: donors are sure that their funds are well used; host government owns the results and are going to use them to improve lives of its citizens; and we, the United Nations, are sure that we have done our work well to the benefit of the country we work in, in this case Belarus.

We have already heard the views of the Government and the major donor of the project, the European Union. We are glad, that their feedback is in general positive – this also confirms our feeling. The results are really tangible, especially this is literally the case for the compendium of the human rights standards – with a weight of 8 kilograms. And if you look at the package of recommendations, you will immediately see the scope of work behind them, and recognize their relevance.

We are very grateful to the project donors – the European Union, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia – and our national counterparts – the Ministry of Justice (and Minister Golovanov and Deputy Minister Simonov personally), the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, the General Prosecutor’s Office and National Bar Association – we thank them for their cooperation and support. We are also very grateful to the national experts who drafted the recommendations. Now it’s time for action!

The United Nations – and I am sure the donors as well – are looking forward to see the positive impact of the project results on the administration of justice in Belarus where – like in any other country – there always is room for improvement. We will therefore be very interested in continuing our cooperation in this sphere. We have already had an exchange of thoughts with Minister Golovanov on this issue earlier this year, and I hope some additional ideas will emerge today, during our discussions. That is why I would like to invite you to an open exchange of opinions on what we can do together to ensure that the administration of justice in Belarus, like in any other country, is fully in line with international human rights standards, and that everyone has good protection of his or her rights and liberties and this supported by a competent, independent and impartial court and law.

Thank you.

Print version