Another attempt by the SBU to increase its control over access to information

The Public Council attached to the State Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting is categorically opposed to provisions in a draft law which would provide the Security Service [SBU] with additional power of control over access to official information and documents containing such information. The draft law in question proposes amendments to some legislative acts supposedly to bring them into line with the Laws on Information and Access to Public Information.

According to Roman Holovenko from the Institute for Mass Information the provision giving the SBU such power was not in the first version of the draft law which civic organizations worked on together with specialists from the State Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting.  The changes must have been made when the document was being agreed with interested ministries and departments.

The Public Council has recommended that the State Committee asks the Cabinet of Ministers  to rework this draft law together with representatives of the SBU and Justice Ministry in order to remove the provision which gives the SBU the right of control over observance of rules of procedure regarding access to official information and documents containing such information,