President approves changes to republican public safety monitoring system

Alexander Lukashenko has signed a decree titled 'On Amending Presidential Decrees of the Republic of Belarus on Issues of the Republican System of Public Safety Monitoring'.

Changes have been made to the 28 November 2013 Decree No. 527 'On Issues of Establishing and Using Video Surveillance Systems for Maintaining Public Order', assigning regional and Minsk city executive committees the responsibility to annually update the list of facilities required to install video surveillance equipment.

The 25 May 2017 Decree No. 187 'On the Republican System of Public Safety Monitoring' has been revised to reflect practical experience in the system's operation.

The decree provides for additional involvement of individual entrepreneurs and legal entities in the organizational and financial support of the monitoring system. At the same time, individuals—owners of residential premises in multi-apartment buildings—are exempted both from reimbursing state budget expenditures and from paying for electricity consumed by the republican public safety monitoring system equipment.

The decree defines entities exempt from compensating co-financing costs for maintenance and operation of the monitoring system (budgetary institutions, organizations of communal property, state road management organizations, and others). This list is not final and may be expanded by a decision of the President of the Republic of Belarus.

The number of users of the republican public safety monitoring system has been increased. Units of the Armed Forces carrying out investigative activities and guarding critically important facilities have been added.

The monitoring system may now also be used to record administrative offenses related to traffic safety and vehicle operation.

The decree includes other provisions aimed at accelerating and improving the development of the monitoring system.