Government instructs SBU to draw up draft law on registration of Internet publications

In an Instruction from 18 February 2009 the Cabinet of Ministers has approved a general plan for legislative work in 2009.

The Security Service [SBU] is instructed to draw up a draft law on amendments to legislation on registration of Internet publications, which would include them as forms of the mass media. The timeframe given is September this year.

The Government has also instructed the State Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting to draw up amendments to the Law on the Protection of Public Morality “in order to create effective legal, economic and organizational conditions for exercising citizens’ rights to an information realm free from material which endangers the physical, intellectual and moral-psychological state of the population. The term for this is April.

We would note that the draft law place at present on the official site of the National Expert Commission for the Protection of Public Morality rouses serious doubts as to its compliance with demands for good legislation (almost total lack of foreseeability, for example!) and needs considerable reworking. More information on this can be found here.