Journalist wins court case against the President of Ukraine

Journalist for the Kharkiv Human Rights Group bulletin “Prava Ludyny” [“Human Rights”], Yury Chumak, has won the civil suit he filed against the President of Ukraine.

The court found unlawful inaction in President Yushchenko’s failure to respond in the designated time period to a request from the journalist to provide the names and issue details of documents which both the present and previous Presidents classified using the illegal stamp “Not to be printed”. The court ordered  that 3 UH 40 kopecks be paid from the state budget. This was precisely the amount which the journalist had asked for in his claim. However the media representative is not satisfied with such an end to the case, and is planning to take the matter to the Appeal Court, since he still wants to learn the names of these classified documents. The response provided by the President’s Representative during the court hearing did not name the documents, but instead gave the explanation that in accordance with the Law “On State secrets” a special permit was required to see documents bearing stamps restricting access. However the stamp “Not to be published” is not foreseen by any law.

More details can be found in Justice achieved – but where’s the information?! at: http://khpg.org/index.php?id=1149723493