On October 28th, the disciplinary commission of the Minsk City Bar Association has held a meeting held to consider the case of Viktar Babaryka’s lawyer Yauhen Pylchanka. The commission decided to disbar Pylchanka for “systematic violations of the advocacy law,” reports Radio Liberty.”
Earlier, on October 19th, the Minister of Justice initiated disciplinary proceedings against Yauhen Pylchanka, who got suspended.
According to Pylchanka, the commission had two main claims.
“The first is that I allegedly made remarks during the trial of Viktar Babaryka. And in the judicial debate, I assessed the speeches of other lawyers. That is for the same reason that Dzmitry Layeuski was expelled,” said the lawyer. “And the second one was for the fact that I defended both Viktar Babaryka and Svyatlana Kupreyeva, a friend of his family. Allegedly, they had a conflict of interest. In fact, I never knew about the conflict of interests, and there is not a single document that would testify to it. The KGB sent a letter that there was a conflict of interest without substantiation or submission of documents. And the disciplinary commission, of course, believed the KGB, not me. And it decided that I violated professional ethics.”
Yauhen Pylchanka has been a lawyer since 2012, and since 2018 he has been with the Law Office “Layevsky and Partners.”
Pylchanka defended ex-banker Viktar Babaryka, his family friend Svyatlana Kupreyeva, his colleague lawyer Maksim Znak.
Now Viktor Babaryka has none of the six lawyers he used to have. Maksim Znak has been sentenced to 10 years, Illya Saley left Belarus, Alyaksandr Pylchanka was disbarred more than a year ago, Zmitser Layeuski was disbarred in July 2021, Natallia Matskevich was suspended on October 13th and expelled from the Bar on October 25th. Now Babaryka’s last lawyer Yauhen Pylchanka has been deprived of his license.
belsat.eu
