Repression of Lawyers in Belarus and Around the World

Around the world, lawyers – particularly those representing human rights defenders, political prisoners, and upholding the rule of law – face threats of disbarment, harassment, and prosecution simply for doing their jobs. 

Jan. 24 marked International Day of the Endangered Lawyer, which focused on Belarus this year. The Belarusian government has developed a toolkit of repression to silence members of the legal profession, with hundreds of lawyers facing disbarment or exile, and at least six sitting in jail based on dubious or politically-motivated charges. 

What tactics is the Belarusian government using? How can the international community best respond to support the legal profession and the rule of law? 

Joining the show to discuss the situation in Belarus are Nils Muiznieks, Maksim Polovinko, and Margaret Satterthwaite. 

Nils is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus. He is a political scientist and human rights expert based in Latvia. Maksim is an expert of the Right to Defense project, until 2020, he was Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Jurist, and an event organizer for the Belarussian legal community. Margaret is a Professor of Clinical Law at NYU Law and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers 

Show Notes: 

• Nils Muižnieks (LinkedIn) 
• Maksim Polovinko
• Margaret Satterthwaite (LinkedIn – X) 
• Paras Shah (LinkedIn – X)
• Nils and Margaret’s Just Security article with Aloysia Sonnet (LinkedIn) “Solidarity Needed Amid Stranglehold on Belarusian Lawyers”
• Just Security’s Belarus coverage
• Just Security’s Rule of Law coverage
• Music: “Broken” by David Bullard from Uppbeat: https://uppbeat.io/t/david-bullard/broken (License code: OSC7K3LCPSGXISVI)

Transcript

Paras Shah: Around the world, lawyers – particularly those representing human rights defenders, political prisoners, and upholding the rule of law – face threats of disbarment, harassment, and prosecution simply for doing their jobs. 

Jan. 24 marked International Day of the Endangered Lawyer, which focused on Belarus this year. The Belarusian government has developed a toolkit of repression to silence members of the legal profession with hundreds of lawyers facing disbarment or exile and at least six sitting in jail based on dubious or politically-motivated charges. 

What tactics is the Belarusian government using? How can the international community best respond to support the legal profession and the rule of law? 

 This is the Just Security Podcast. I’m your host, Paras Shah. 

Joining the show to discuss the situation in Belarus are Nils Muiznieks, Maksim Polovinko, and Margaret Satterthwaite. 

Nils is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus. He is a political scientist and human rights expert based in Latvia. Maksim is an expert of the Right to Defense project. Until 2020, he was Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Jurist, and an event organizer for the Belarusian legal community. Margaret is a Professor of Clinical Law at NYU Law and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.

Nils, Maksim, Meg, welcome to the show. Could you start by helping us understand what's happening to the legal profession in Belarus? And Nils, let's start with you. 

Nils Muiznieks: Yes, Thank you. I mean, the government has largely destroyed the independence of the judiciary and has put a stranglehold on lawyers, particularly in recent years. This is part of a broader, long-term pattern of repression. It's been going on for a long time, but the situation has deteriorated in the last couple of years. You’ve had one man rule in Belarus for 30 years, a little bit more. It's called the last dictatorship in Europe. You've had a huge crackdown in and around the 2020 presidential elections, and it was not just lawyers, but especially, you know, lawyers, especially those who are working on sensitive cases, were targeted along with journalists, opposition politicians, civil society activists, and others. And the profession, not just individual lawyers, but the profession of a lawyer as a whole has been much brought under government control over the last couple of years. So, that's kind of the big picture.

Paras: Thanks for that overview. And let's discuss some of the particular tactics that the Belarusian government is using, including weaponizing the criminal legal system and even revoking bar licenses from attorneys. What are you seeing in terms of the tactics that the state is using? 

Nils: Um, I can start maybe, and then Meg and Maksim can jump in. You're seeing non-disclosure agreements, where lawyers are not supposed to share any of the case materials publicly, and if they do, they get punished. You have lawyers coming under direct criminal charges under really vague and broad anti-terrorism and anti-extremism legislation. You're seeing administrative detentions. You're seeing the state taking over the bar and using disciplinary measures and recertification procedures to control lawyers. You're seeing lawyers basically being punished for sharing case files with clients, and thereby they are essentially in-absentia trials, which have become more common in the last couple of years. And you know, they don't even communicate with their clients abroad. And the government has been trying to go after people who are living abroad as well. 

So, you have a total dependence on state-appointed attorneys. But these attorneys do not have any communication with their clients abroad, which is quite striking. So, it's a whole broad arsenal of tools that the government is using, kind of, to bring lawyers under control and to make sure that they don't defend people in politically sensitive cases. But it makes it, you know, it's destroying the profession of a lawyer altogether. Meg, over to you.

Margaret (Meg) Satterthwaite: I think I would just underscore a number of things that my colleague has already said. The existence of an independent legal profession is a key to any rule of law in any country, and so when a country, or autocracy, is trying to take over civil society, one of the first things they target is independent bar associations. So, taking those bar associations over by being able to determine who becomes a lawyer, who is disciplined, who can be disbarred — that is one of the number one tools of shutting down an independent bar. 

And the reason that's so important is, if you think about it, lawyers are those who can challenge actions of governments using law. So, they're the ones who have the ability to go into a court and say this action is unlawful, or to say this trial is a sham, these charges are unfair, and to demand fair trial and due process for any individual. So, targeting that by shutting it down and then taking it over is a really powerful tool.  

I also want to just underscore these very strange and very problematic non-disclosure agreements. I think we've seen non-disclosure agreements used in lots of problematic circumstances, but this context, where even being able to talk about the basics of a charge against a client, is extremely problematic. It goes directly to the ability of a lawyer to be able to advise their client properly, to be able to represent them properly, and to simply stand up in court and do their best, do their work properly. So, those are a few things I would underscore.

Paras: And you mentioned some of this, Meg, I mean, being able to control the machinery of the legal system and to be able to challenge actions of the state are key in terms of what lawyers are able to do. But what is really motivating the Belarusian government here? What's the context and the background that would be helpful to understand what's led to this moment? And Maksim, let's turn to you. 

Maksim Polovinko: Thank you very much. I have to add some context about 2020 in Belarus, and take a look at look back. In Belarus, legal system has been completely co-opted by the state. Judges, prosecutors and law enforcement no longer operate independently. They serve as instruments of repression. Courts do not ensure justice and rubber-stamp politically motivated charges. In this broken system, lawyers were the last remaining element that functioned as it should, defending clients, upholding legal standards and ensuring that fundamental rights were not completely raised. 

The Belarusian government has been waging a war against dissidents. You should understand that it is some kind of war. In this environment, anyone opposing the regime is seen as an enemy to be crushed. Prosecutors see protesters as criminals who must be punished. Judges and judges agree and issue sentences without regard for justice. But then into this system steps a lawyer, someone who refused to play along. Lawyers tell protesters, you have rights, you are not a criminal. You're a human being in a system designed to dehumanize and punish. This is an intolerable disruption. If lawyers are allowed to continue providing real defense, the system of repression remains incomplete. The regime understands that as long as independent lawyers exist, there will always be someone questioning the state's version of an event, advocating for fairness and offering citizens a sense of justice. And the government wants to erase that. 

Sole lawyers, especially independent, as it could be, independent part of legal profession, became a primary target of repression. It was not about silencing a few outspoken voices. It was about ensuring that there was no legal opposition left at all. If lawyers cannot be forced to serve the state, they must be eliminated from the system entirely, and this is the context of attacks to lawyers. And I completely agree with Meg that if you want to spoil the right to defense, spoil the right to fair trial, you must begin from the independent legal profession.

Nils: Yeah, you asked about the motivation. I mean, I think it's on the part of Mr. Lukashenko and the people orchestrating the repression. It's fear and revenge. It's fear of losing power, and it's revenge against those who dared to challenge them and to defend those who dared to challenge them. And I think that's, you know, destroying them. As I said in the beginning, lawyers are part of a broader list of targets for the government when they basically are trying to destroy all opposition.

Paras: Right, and after the 2020 presidential elections, we did see mass arrests of thousands of protesters, many of whom were arbitrarily detained, tortured, often on politically motivated charges. And zooming out, the tactics of the Belarusian government will sound familiar, or may sound familiar, to lawyers working in other autocratic states. What else do we know about efforts to repress the work of lawyers globally?

Meg: So, I think you're right to point out there is a trend of autocratization, and I'm going to use the term autocratization to underscore that any system can move in the direction of autocracy. That means a democracy one day could tomorrow see some of these things happening. And so, I'll just underscore a few very particular things that many autocratizing governments are doing to take over justice systems. 

So, first, what you see is the use of the law itself to create an autocratic system. And that happens by capturing justice institutions, so packing courts, taking over bar associations, putting in loyalists into these justice institutions, putting in loyal prosecutors. The second is curbing the ability of independent justice operators to act autonomously. So, shutting down their ability by criminalizing them or putting in new rules of professional responsibility, or shutting down the ways that judges can opine independently. 

The third thing that we see is the instrumentalization of justice systems, so bringing politically motivated criminal cases, using lawyer discipline to suppress dissent, removing lawyers from the roles, disbarring them, things that we've already talked about today. And then finally, you see a more desperate attempt, which is to simply attack justice operators. So, harmful kinds of disparagement and calling out by the highest levels of the state of particular judges, of particular lawyers, harassing and threatening them. And this is often done by you might call the informal forces that follow these very strong leaders. So, you might see disparagement from the top followed by harassment and threats from people who support that leader. And then you even see killings and disappearances of lawyers and judges, and I have examples, unfortunately, from every region, of all of these different kinds of steps being taken to autocratize legal and justice systems around the world.

Paras: Maksim, did you want to add a point there?

Maksim: Yeah, thank you. I think Meg is hiding somewhere a magical ball which allows to read thoughts, because I have almost completely the same. And every time I was invited on to various meetings with, I mean, European Court of Human Rights event and so on, I'm asking myself, what can I provide? What can be my contribution to this event? And I found it. I can be predictive about what steps you should avoid. 

In my childhood, we learned very interesting example of philosophy of thought. Julius Fucik, tortured Czech author, wrote on the wall of his jail, people, be attentive. And I want to say that all the changes never come with big consequences. They come step by step, and we collected six steps of destroying the right to defense. First of all, the first step is to associate lawyers with their clients. And the first step, then you are saying that if you are defending criminals, you are a criminal too. You have the same point of view on the regime, you have said the same political views and so on. 

The second one is prosecuting and punishing lawyers for fulfilling their professional duty. Then you don't divide action as a lawyer and from action as a criminal. The lawyer serves his duties. These duties are proclaimed as a crime, and that's why lawyers can be punished. The third one is restricting the flow of legal information. It is also the big tent to proclaim almost all information as the threat of national security, state secrets, and so on. And not to allow information flow from courts and from cases to society, creating a hierarchy of cases, making some clients too dangerous to defend. Just imagine, tomorrow, workers from USAID will be proclaimed state criminals and judges will believe in it, prosecutors. And if the lawyers believe in it, it can be a very, very severe problem. 

Fifth one, destroying professional solidarity. Any attempts by lawyers to organize in defense of their profession are quickly suppressed. Bar associations have been stripped of independence. Internal dissidents are punished and public support for persecution is criminalized. I think every country can reach, sometimes, this bad idea. And the sixth one is an interesting concept of autocratic legalism, reshaping laws to cement control. Finally, the government writes legal norms to institutionalize repression. In Belarus, this has meant passing laws that give the Ministry of Justice complete control over bar associations, eliminating independent legal practice and making it impossible for lawyers to operate outside of state control. 

And with six steps, one by one, they are not so enormous or severe, but if you follow them, you can completely change the shape of legal profession.

Paras: Yeah, that's quite a comprehensive toolkit that both of you have laid out in terms of how autocrats are able to manipulate the legal system. In terms of solutions — and here, I want to try to be as practical as possible — what can the international community do to support lawyers in Belarus and in other states who are facing similar circumstances. 

Nils: Meg, do you want to start? 

Meg: I think you're going to have many more. So, I would start by saying that having solidarity among lawyers is very important, and I think that this is easy to forget in places where the rule of law is taken for granted. But it's really important that lawyers remember their crucial role in protecting the rule of law and democracy and ensuring everyone can have their human rights. And so, bar associations, I think, have a really crucial role to play here, and this is why this day of the endangered lawyer was created some time ago, in order to, every year, highlight a country where lawyers, because of their role as lawyers, are being attacked. And it really is also showing the heroic work of lawyers who continue to work in these circumstances. 

And I think that having that solidarity can turn that into concrete strategies, and that might include things like putting out statements, being in touch directly with governments who are cracking down on lawyers, asking your own government to act to protect those lawyers. And then one final thing that I'll say on bar associations. Also, finding ways to ensure that lawyers who are in exile can continue to function as lawyers. So, we know that bar associations have the role of ensuring licensing and ensuring ethical practice of the law. It's incredibly helpful and important to make sure that lawyers who come with degrees from other systems can find ways of practicing law in their host countries. And so, some bar associations in different countries have done this, and I think that's been a really important act of solidarity that also enriches the host countries bar by bringing these additional experts into the system.

Nils: If I can continue. I mean, I think another step is to combat impunity for human rights violations more broadly, and to hold those people to account, especially if judges have become tools of repression, or lawyers have become tools of repression. They should be held to account. And if it can't be done within the country, it should be done internationally. 

With regard to Belarus, you know, there are a couple of venues being pursued right now. You have some cases being brought under universal jurisdiction in various places. You have a referral to the International Criminal Court by Lithuania, and you have some other attempts to try to push for some kind of accountability for those who are doing these violations. And governments throughout the world, a lot of governments have basically declared as no business as usual with Belarus, on the diplomatic front, on the economic front, on the political front, because the elections were not free and fair, the elections that just took place, because of the massive repression. 

But I think also we have to monitor not only what's going on within Belarus, but what Belarus is trying to do to Belarusians outside of Belarus. You have a lot of transnational repression going on. You know, Interpol red notices, abuse of abuse of those. You have cyber-attacks. You have deprivation of nationality. You have confiscation of property of people in exile, and it's a really nasty, nasty form of repression. And I think we have to be alert to it, not only within the country of Belarus, but internationally. And I think this holds true for a lot of repressive regimes, that the repression has really become transnational in the last few years.

Maksim: Well, the Russian government relies on silence. It needs international institutions, media and legal communities to look the other way so that it can quietly erase the legal profession’s independence and cover up human rights abuses. The most powerful way to counteract this is to break the silence and keep the spotlight on what is happening. So, we should speak, we should publish, we should make statements. We should collect information and analyze it, because the last year, we noticed the new tendency, the new trend that repression became hidden. For example, six lawyers were detained, were arrested in February 2024, and no information about their names, no information about consequences of this detention. But analyzing indirect information, we found out the names of all these lawyers who were, I think, we can join information from different sources and say that they were punished for donating to Independent funds, for helping people under repression. And it's just a speculation, not real fact. But we should collect. We have to collect. We have to analyze, we have to store, we have to publish. Evil requires silence.  

Paras: Yeah, very true. A lot of important steps that the international community can take. And we're running short on time, but looking forward, what are the one or two biggest trends that each of you is watching for in the coming months? 

Nils: Well, I think right now, we are watching the growth in number of trials in absentia. You've had in the last year and a half more than 120, and our fear is that this practice is spreading rapidly. So, this is one trend we're watching. It's getting harder to get information on repression in Belarus. So, you had a few symbolic releases or pardons of prisoners, but you have ongoing criminal and administrative detention of other people. So, you have a facade of some kind of liberalization, but ongoing repression, which is getting more difficult to monitor, and this kind of facade of kind of easing is probably going to be used by the authorities to say, hey, let's talk, let's go back to business as usual. 

But I think the machinery of repression is still in motion, and that machinery is so comprehensive, and it goes back in time, persecuting people for things that they said or did five years ago. And it goes, it's very widespread in its reach. It, you know, reaches abroad, and not just in Belarus. So, I'm looking for some kind of a big signal that if there is some change, we will know it, because the signal from the very top has to be very clear to this huge machinery of repression. But we're not seeing that right now. We're seeing ongoing repression, which is very, very concerning, and we feel solidarity for all the people having to suffer in those conditions. 

Maksim: We don't wait for principal changes. We think that the number of repression against lawyers will stay on the low level because there are no more lawyers to repress inside the bar association. And we think that legal profession will, I think, I mean, lawyers will participate in state propaganda more and more. And I want to stress that nowadays, the role of the bar association, role of legal profession, have really changed in the rules. Nowadays, the client of lawyers is a state, not a real client, and every lawyer has to have to know how to notice all the signs from the state, what he has to do, what he should conduct and so on. What kind of monuments he should visit on the state holiday, state’s liberation, and so on. And they think the situation is right. The defense will continue to worsen. It will continue to worsen but repression won't be on the high level, I think, but the situation will be worse. 

Meg: So, I would say that for me, kind of pulling back to the global context, and thinking about what lessons this really careful look at Belarus might bring us. I'll be watching very much to see, can those of us who are in situations where we can raise our voice, can we show the kind of solidarity that we need to be showing for those who are trying to protect the rule of law, and that's going to be abroad and at home. We do see this unfortunate playbook, pages from the playbook, really being put into motion at home as well as abroad. And so, the transnationalization of repression is something that we see, not only from Belarus, but from a number of other governments. 

And I would like to see our government not allowing that to happen, and I'd like to see lawyers and all sorts of justice advocates here in the United States standing up to protect the rule of law and reminding folks that the independence of the justice system is a right of everyone. It's not about the right of judges to be free from pressure, because of course, that is judicial independence, but we want judicial independence, and we want independent legal profession to protect the rights of everyone. And I think we've got to just keep reminding everyone that is ultimately the foundation of the rule of law, and it's worth protecting now, before it's too late, in places where we still could hold on to it. 

Paras: And we're running short on time. But is there anything that we haven't mentioned yet that you'd like to add?

Maksim: I want to add what is life is like for a Belarusian lawyer now. The Belarusian lawyer today lives under constant, constant pressure. The entire legal profession is surrounded by propaganda reinforcing state narratives. The leadership of the bar association actively participates in this propaganda, ensuring that any dissident is suppressed. Just imagine the lawyer in the collaboration of our police force in the morning speaks about fighting against extremism from the state point of view, but in the evening, this lawyer has to defend people accused of extremism, and you understand that it is a completely incorrect situation. 

Then, a lawyer is approached for a politically sensitive case. They must weigh the risk of losing everything, and it's true, everything. many simply decline, citing workload concerns, knowing that defending the wrong client could end their career. If their rights are related, there is no violated. No one from the bar association will stand up for them. Instead, they are more likely to be punished by their own professional community to avoid displeasing state authorities. 

A lawyer in Belarus has no authority in the courtroom. Prosecutors dismiss them as irrelevant. Judges treat them in contempt. Even prison guards have the power to create problems for them. At every level, the legal profession is undermined and violated. Moreover, lawyers are expected to engage in public outreach, visiting schools and workplaces. But there's no guarantee that this session will be free from state propaganda. The legal profession is no longer about serving people. I'm sorry. It's a matter of fact. We have few lawyers by now who are serving their work honestly. But they are a real minority, real minority. I think, maybe one or two dozen of lawyers who are still in the profession. We are speaking. They are below the radar of the system. And the life of lawyers is completely hard. Completely hard. 

Paras: Nils, Maksim, Meg, thanks so much for joining the show. We'll be tracking all of these issues at Just Security. Thank you again to all of you. 

Meg: Thank you. 

Maksim: Thank you. 

Nils: Thanks so much for your interest.

Paras: This episode was hosted and produced by me, Paras Shah, with help from Clara Apt.

Special thanks to Nils Muiznieks, Maksim Polovinko, and Margaret Satterthwaite. You can read all of Just Security’s coverage of human rights and the rule of law, including Nils and Margaret’s analysis, on our website. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.