Is The National Bank Empowered to Declare? (September 15, 1997)

Last week the Belarusian government & the National Bank released a combined statement. It contains many figures & facts about bringing the inflation down. There is no use to reproduce them all. I am not going to analyze them either as it's the work for an economist rather than a legal expert.

Because of my professional interest the question about the essence of the document called "governmental statement" attracted my attention. Can it be regarded as a normative document or just as a piece of non-committal information? I started to look through the laws. One of them is "About the Cabinet of Ministers of Republic of Belarus" (though the word "cabinet" today is again replaced by the word "soviet", nevertheless, the Government continues to be Government, & the law is still in power).

According to the article 5 the Government is empowered to reckon with the National Bank in the monetary & credit policies. But it's not mentioned what forms can be used. At the same time article 34 envisages only two ways of public announcement of the will of the executive body which are resolution of vital importance & the latter includes enactments on the current questions. Statements are not mentioned anywhere. I also looked though the amended by the November Referendum constitution, article 5. It states that the Government is empowers to adopt resolutions & the Prime Minister can give orders. And nothing else.

In the Law "About the National Bank of Belarus" there is not a single line about statement that till the end of this year the rate of inflation will not exceed 2% per month? To my mind it sounds like a declaration about intentions. Otherwise this document would be called differently, would have the number & the date to follow the principle "everything is allowed if it's not forbidden by the law" he could issue various kinds of documents up to petitions, memorandums & ect. But the same question how should we understand these documents appears. I think that the release of the statements is not enough to bring the inflation down. It's clear that there is nothing worse that mere words which are soon forgotten. Nobody can be made responsible for them as they are released in the slippery form of the statements.

Alexander Balyshev.

Translated by Veronica Sai. Please send mail about the quality of translation.