Official correspondence with militia

Tatiana Kolisnychenko, Khmelnitskiy:

The official correspondence seems to be a tedious affair. Yet, our correspondence was very interesting. Since it is extremely difficult to obtain any information from some state organizations and agencies, our newspaper decided to resort to the epistolary method.

However, the officials did not want to give us the information, although they had to do that within a month. Some answers filled us with indignation. For instance, we put an innocent question to the oblast directorate of interior. The matter is that the tenth session of the Khmelnitskiy oblast council permitted this directorate to reconstruct the building, where the special squad “Berkut” was located, and to make there the flats for militiamen. We wanted to learn how much this reconstruction would cost, who would get the flats in the building, how many militiamen were waiting for flats and to where “Berkut” would be moved. We hoped that the state structure, which is financed from budget (that is at the expense of taxpayers), would not conceal this information. Yet, our hopes were not justified.

Either the militia directorate decided to brush aside our “journalistic games”, or this agency is not interested in the transparency of its activities, but we got the following answer: “The building of apartment houses (what houses they meant?) and their reconstruction by the directorate of interior is carried out in compliance with the operating laws…” And that is all. Well, the answer is rather indistinct.

Yet, everything is correct from juridical viewpoint. The militia authorities dispatched this letter within the term stipulated by law, a month after our request. Everything is correct, but it looks that we were crudely swindled.

We have the right to appeal against this response to a higher instance, and later -- to a court. And we will use this right. Maybe then the directorate will let us into its secrets?

 (Social-political weekly “E!”, No. 27, 2003;
“Prava ludyny” (Ukrainian version), No. 25, 1-15 September 2003)