While formal rules can be read and analysed, informal rules are shaped by the atmosphere created through daily statements, actions, and unspoken cues. These unwritten norms and conventions are often far more numerous — and more influential — than the written ones. They are summed up by the phrase, “you all understand how it works”. Such rules are difficult to identify and catalogue, but we will attempt to describe them here.
- The Role and Function of Attorneys
Much has been written on this topic, including in our
report “Crisis of the Belarusian Bar: How to Restore the Right to Legal Defence.” Here, we will highlight only the core issues.
In 2021, a new official narrative was
launched:
“Attorney as a State Servant”. In other words, serving the interests of the state, participating in government propaganda, legitimising Belarusian legislation, and tolerating human rights violations by the state became key functions assigned to the legal profession.
Bar communication channels became saturated not with news about resolving urgent professional problems — like access to clients in the KGB pre-trial detention centre — but with symbolic acts like
laying flowers at the monument to pilot Akrestsina. Instead of focusing on human rights, the Council of Young Lawyers
collaborated with GUBOPiK. It seems clear that participation in such activities is difficult to refuse. The spirit of this policy was perfectly
captured by Olga Chupris, who stated: “Legal professionals should generally be prepared to join state bodies”.
Naturally, if a lawyer appears on national television in the morning to speak about the fight against extremists and the absence of freedom of speech, and in the evening must defend someone accused of “extremist” activity, this moves from legal practice into Kafkaesque absurdity.
- “You Should Know Whom to Defend — and Whom Not To”
There is no official document — at least none that we are aware of — that forbids attorneys from defending
Viktar Babaryka,
Maksim Znak, or other well-known and lesser-known political prisoners. But the fact is this:
not a single attorney has agreed to represent such clients or sign a defence contract in trials conducted in absentia.
This chilling effect is the result of deliberate, specific actions. For example, five of Maksim Znak’s lawyers were stripped of their licences. The same happened to the lawyers representing Viktar Babaryka. The latest warning shot came on
20 March 2023, when six attorneys
were detained simultaneously — individuals with nothing in common except one thing: they had all defended prominent political prisoners.
It’s important to understand that the state cannot effectively conduct torture, mistreatment, and incommunicado detention without first removing lawyers from the process. No lawyers — no one to insist on due process, file complaints, or demand access. Our project believes that the deliberate targeting and intimidation of lawyers is part of the broader crime of persecuting political opponents. It's much harder to strip someone of basic rights when someone is fighting for them on the outside. If no one is fighting, then silencing the prisoner becomes much easier.
The nature of attorney persecution has also changed. Where once such cases were reported via semi-transparent sources, now — such as with the February 2024 mass arrests — the consequences can only be
inferred from indirect evidence.
In any normal legal system, bar associations are
tasked with defending the independence of the legal profession, supporting attorneys in the exercise of their rights, and responding to violations of those rights and the erosion of defence standards. Not in Belarus.
Self-governing bodies of the legal profession actively participate in persecuting lawyers. Approximately one-third of all repressive cases against attorneys
originate from the actions of these bodies. It was letters — some containing false information or distorted legal assessments — from Iryna Smirnova, head of the Minsk Regional Bar Association, that served as the basis for the
expulsion of Dzmitry Laeuski from the Minsk City Bar and the
criminal case against Andrei Mochalau. At times, the self-governing bodies appear more proactive than the Ministry of Justice itself in targeting lawyers. These bodies
collaborate with the authorities by revoking the licences of lawyers charged with administrative offences of a political nature, while entirely ignoring others. With colleagues like these, who needs enemies?
The result is that every individual attorney knows:
no one will step in to protect you if you demand the law be followed, file complaints, or go against state policy. Combined with the complete paralysis of the judiciary, this creates immense pressure to follow state-imposed rules instead of the ethical principles of legal practice.
- Elimination and Censorship of Independent Information
One of the key strategies — both formal and informal — used to pressure attorneys has been cutting off the flow of information, both to and from the legal profession.
Today, it is virtually impossible to access information from legal proceedings. Attorneys do not communicate with clients in trials held in absentia. Lawyers — and often family members too — share no updates about ongoing cases. (This is a general problem, but lawyers, being a small, identifiable group, are easy targets for intimidation in each case.)
Comparing the volume of available information between 2020–2022 and now, one finds that
there is almost nothing left. And the reason is clear: when any information from a criminal case appears in the public domain, the lawyer may be swiftly detained — perhaps even beaten — and the incident justified through a fabricated charge or protocol. There’s no need to look far for examples: the
arrests of attorneys
Makarau,
Sahanovich, and
Hulkova (initially accused of leaking case materials, which was never proven); the
convictions of
Anastasiya Lazarenka and
Yuliya Yurgilevich, both allegedly for passing on information.