Judicial Independence in the Republic of Belarus

Abstract

Between 1922 and the early 1990s Belarus was part of the Soviet Union, in which the notion of “judicial power” did not exist. It was understood that government power was indivisible, and that the people exercised that power through Councils of Deputies, who elected judges. The courts were not independent and judges were subordinated to the governing bodies of the Communist Party. In Belarus the principle of the separation of powers was introduced for the first time only in 1990 in the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Republic of Belarus.