General provisions
The law of the Republic of Belarus "On public associations" provides that supervision of the activity of public associations and its correspondence with the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus and laws of the Republic of Belarus shall be conducted by the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Belarus and subordinate prosecutors.
Supervision of the activity of public associations and its correspondence with their statuts shall be conducted by the bodies, which registered the associations.
Officials which registered public associations can, within the scope of their authority, take part in all events of these associations, look through their documents and decisions, demand and receive information on the issues related to statutorial activity of the public association.

Violations of the requirements of the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On public associations", other legal acts, as well as requirements stated in statutes and related to associations can be punished by the registering bodies with the following penalties: written warning and liquidation of the public association.
Written warning shall be issued to the directorate body of a public association in case if its activity was contradictory to the requirements of the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On public associations" (except for cases when violation shall be punished by the liquidation of public association by the decision of the court), or if the organization has violated other legal acts and the requirements of the statute. The violations listed in warning shall be eliminated within a stated period of time or within a month after the moment of receiving the written warning. The registering body shall be notified on elimination of the violations (or on the activities taken to eliminate the violations) within the stated deadlines.
Supervision of financial activity of public associations, including supervision of the sources of income, amount of finances received and duties paid shall be conducted by state taxation authorities.
According to the law of the Republic of Belarus "On public associations", other interference into the activity of a public association, shall be prohibited.

However, public associations are legal entities, and therefore they fall under the regulation of the legislation on legal entities of the Republic of Belarus. Hence, there are more state bodies which can check their activity. For example, financial activity of public associations can be supervised by about 10 state agencies: the Committee for State The Control, the Foundation for Social protection of Population, the Department of Financial Investigations of the Committee for State Control, the Ministry of Finances, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the KGB, the State Customs Committee, the Ministry of Economics, the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus and others. These agencies are responsible for supervision of financial discipline, payment of taxes and other deductions, registration and use of foreign gratuitous donations, international technical donations and etc. Moreover, there is a number of state agencies responsible for the control other aspects of activity of public associations - the State Committee on Archives and Record Keeping, the Main Paramilitary Fire Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and others. When a public association applies for a license for certain activity, the agency issuing licenses shall also supervise the licensed activity of the association.

Supervision by the registering bodies
We have to highlight the process of inspections of public associations by the registering bodies, we shall also note that recently the justice agencies have their supervision functions over public associations. According to the data, published by the Ministry of Justice, in 2003 justice departments checked 801 organizations all over the republic to find out if their activity corresponded with law and their statutes, and there were 7 times more written warnings all over the republic than for the same period of time in 2002 . As we mentioned before, in accordance with the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On public associations" the registering bodies shall supervise the activity of the association on its conformance with statutes of the associations. According to the Law of the Republic of Belarus No.361-З "On normative legal acts of the Republic of Belarus" adopted on 10.01.2000, the laws have preliminary force over the resolutions of the Council of Ministers, but the Ministry of Justice refers to the rules of the Provisions on the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus approved by the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus on 31.10.2001 No.1605 (with changes and amendments of 14.05.2004)  to entrust itself with controlling functions over conformance of activities of public associations not only with their statutes, but also with all the legislation of the Republic of Belarus.

For example, in 2002-2003 many of public associations got warnings from registering bodies since their stamps did not meet legal requirements. At the same time, according to the Instruction "On procedure of establishment and functioning of stamp-padding and engraving businesses (divisions), preparation, registration, deposition and elimination of stamps and seals" approved by the Resolution of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus No.157 on 25.09.2000, supervision over producing, registering, depositing and eliminating stamps shall be conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Main Department of Internal Affairs of Minsk City executive Committee, Departments of internal of oblast executive committees, departments (divisions) of internal of city (regional) executive committees and administration agencies. Supervision over production of stamps shall be conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus (according to the Regulations on the Ministry of Internal Affairs approved by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus No.151 on 24.03.1992). It shall be noted that the agencies authorized for supervision over stamps did not have objections relating to the stamps of public associations.
There are no provisions in the llegislation of the Republic of Belarus regulating the procedure of inspections by the registration bodies.

As a consequence of such omission in law, public associations are not protected from the supervising bodies. In practice, the staff of the Ministry of Justice (as well as the Department of Justice) can claim documents from the individuals not authorized to handle the papers, inspections are held in improper time, and any resistance to such activities can be considered as "impeding to fulfillment of the supervision".