Belarus: A New Country in Eastern Europe
Выдавец: Тэхналогія
Памер: 72с.
Мінск 1994
CONCEPTUAL PROVISIONS OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION
As has been said before, according to the new Constitution adopted on the 15th of March 1994 Belarus becomes a presidential republic. The head of the state and of the executive power is President who is elected by all-nation election for a 5-year term. The new Constitution consists of a preamble and eight chapters:
1. The basis of the constitutional system;
2. Person, society, state;
3. Election system, referendum;
4. Legislative, executive and judicial branches of power:
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5. Local government and self-government;
6. State control and supervision;
7. Finance and credit system;
8. The Constitution in action and the order of its changing.
The new Constitution of Belarus is based on the following fundamental provisions:
everything is done for the man's benefit, the state should care about the man more than a man should care about the state;
the existence of the three branches of power: the legislative to make laws; the executive to enforce the laws; the judicial to regulate the conflicts;
all the people are equal in eyes of the law and their rights are protected by the law;
the government is a government of laws, not a government of individuals. Not a single official can use the power in a different way than is allowed by the Constitution and laws;
the Constitution, laws and international agreements are the supreme laws on the territory of the Republic of Belarus.
The conception of the human rights in the new Constitution is quite different from that in the Constitution of 1978 which was aimed at the quick construction of communism. A person is the biggest value of society and the state. The state is responsible before its citizens for the creation of conditions for the development of a person.
Liquidation of the communist party monopoly of power has made it possible in the new Constitution the existence of various political institutions, ideologies, and views. The new Constitution states that no political party or popular organization can force its ideology onto Belarus' citizens.
There is provided the freedom for activities of associations, unions and organizations with the exception of such where the aim of the organization is the overthrow of the constitutional system, actions against the integrity and safety of the state, constitutional rights and freedoms of people, war propaganda, and propaganda of social, national, religious and racial hostility.
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In the human rights sphere it is very important that the state should protect these rights, that there is legal defence from encroachments on the people's rights and that the limitation of those rights is not allowed. The above conditions mean that in the state of emergency there can be no restrictions as to the rights of freedom, personal immunity, dwelling and property immunity, freedom of worship and the right to information.
The Constitution points out the main principles of the electorate system. The elections to the power institutions are free, equal and direct. The ballot should be secret, the right to vote have all the citizens who are at least 18.
The conception of the people's power is shown in the Constitution in chapters on the referendum that should reflect the most important moments of the state and social life. The republican referendum may be conducted at the initiative of the President, 70 people’s deputies of the Supreme Soviet or at least 450 thousand citizens that have the voting right.
The supreme representative and the only legislative organ is the Supreme Soviet. It will consist of 260 deputies elected for a 5-year term. The Constitution does not permit a pre-term dismissal of the Parliament. The President has the right to veto all the laws adopted by the majority of the Parliament but the Parliament has the possibility to overrule the veto if 2/3 of the deputies vote for it.
To provide stability of constitutional norms there exists a complex system of making amendments to the Constitution. According to the procedure, to bring an amendment for the discussion one needs the support of 40 deputies or 150 thousand of the citizens, of the President or the Constitutional Court. For the amendment to become a constitutional norm it is necessary to pass two rounds of discussion and approvals by the Supreme Soviet, the break between the rounds being not less than three months. The Constitutional amendments cannot be adopted in the state of emergency and also during the last six months of the Supreme Soviet term of office. To adopt the constitutional amendment 2/3 of deputies' votes are needed.
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4. Economy
When Gorbachev came to power in 1985 he had initiated the processes of democratization in social, political and public life of the Soviet society. Those processes were later named perestroika. Perestroika in its turn became the basis of state and economic changes on the territory of the USSR. Belarus as one of the former Soviet republics had also been involved in those changes and now is playing the role of a new independent state in Eastern Europe.
The Belarusan politicians understand well that the proclamation of independence is just the beginning of creation of an economically and politically viable state. To reach that goal one must conduct the firm state policy. First of all such policy should be aimed at making reforms that will provide the formation of a statehood and will make provisions for the normal development of the economy.
Belarus is rather a highly industrially developed country. The industry produces nearly 70% of GNP. Belarus proper consumes only 13% produced goods. A great amount of goods produced by Belarusan industries and agriculture is oriented towards the CIS countries' markets.
The main branches of Belarusan industry are machine building, instrument making, chemical, wood processing, light and food industries. Over 100 large enterprises are the basis of Belarusan economy. These are such large plants as Minsk Tractor Plant, the Refrigerator Producing Amalgamation Atlant, the Television Sets Producing Amalgamation Gorizont, Belarusan Amalgamation of Heavy-load Trucks P-Muction BelavtoMAZ, Novopolotsk and Mozyr oil-processing plants, artificial fibres producing plants, Zhlobin metallurgy plant and many others. There is a number of enterprises in Belarus that produce unique goods. Among them are Smorgon optical machine building plant, Belarusan op-
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tic and mechanical amalgamation, Minsk plant of wheeled prime movers, Bobruisk tire producing plant and some others.
180 ton dump truck produced by BelAZ
The share of Belarus in the former USSR production industries was rather high. For example, it produced 20% of all the tractors, 20% of motorcycles, 19% of mineral fertilizers, 16% of artificial fibres, 15% of TV sets, 11% of refrigerators, 10% of metal-cutting machines, 5% of trucks. To evaluate the economic potential of Belarus it is sufficient to mention that in 1990 it produced over 100 thousand "Belarus" tractors, 42 thousand trucks including heavy-weight dump trucks BelAZ with the carrying capacity of 110 and 180 tons, 730 thousand household refrigerators, 1.3 million color TV sets, 15 thousand of metal-cutting machines, 450 thousand tons of artificial fibres, 6 million tons of mineral fertilizers, 40 million tons of oil were processed.
Belarus is a country with a well-developed agriculture. Its agricultural lands formed only 0.6% of all agricultural lands of the former USSR but they gave 6% of overall production of meat and milk, 16% of potatoes, 24% of flax. According to 1989 figures the grain production
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per capita in Belarus was 832 kg, beetroots — 176 kg, potatoes — 1085 kg, meat — 117 kg, milk — 726 kg.
Belarus possesses a great scientific and technical potential the basis of which constitute the Academy of Sciences, 30 higher education institutions, numerous scientific research institutes and laboratories. In these institutions a lot of fundamental and applied research in different branches of science such as physics, chemistry, electronics, machine building, cybernetics, biology and other spheres is made. Over 300 institutions, organizations, special engineering offices and scientific institutes with more than 100 thousand specialists are engaged in these research projects.
It must be noted that until recently the greater part of the scientific and industrial potential of Belarus worked for the military-industrial complex of the former USSR. In 1991 25% of Belarusan industrial goods were produced for the military needs of the USSR. 250 thousand workers and 50 thousand scientists and engineers were employed in the war industry. Now enterprises and institutions of the military-industrial complex of Belarus are being converted for the production of consumer goods. This conversion needs large investments which the state lacks. Therefore this lately flourishing sector of Belarusan economy is going through hard times linked with the conversion and diversification of industry.
Belarus is an energy-dependent country. For example, in 1992 Belarus extracted 2 million tons of oil, 4.2 million tons of peat, 0.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas, which in whole constitutes 5 million tons of conventional fuel. That same year Belarus imported 20.6 million tons of oil, 17.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas, 2 million tons of coal which totals 50 million tons of conventional fuel. So Belarus self provision with energy which is the ratio between extracted or produced energy resources and the volume of consumed resources was in 1992 only 10%.
The problem of energy provision is one of the most urgent for the Belarusan government. In 1993 because of the sharp rise in the price of imported (mainly from Russia) power resources, Belarus could import only 11.8 million tons of oil. This negatively influenced not only the power consumption in Belarusan industry and agriculture but also the
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work of the oil-processing enterprises. In 1993 the volume of oil processed in Belarus lessened threefold if compared with 1990.
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