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The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukrainian officials think that citizens have no right to approach the President!

13.07.2006   
The letter here seems to suggest that at least one member of the President’s Administration has no idea about the recent civil suit won by KhPG’s Yury Chumak, and precious little about who is bound to reply to requests for information
We have seen much in the course of the campaign “To be printed!”, run by the “Maidan” Alliance, and aimed at stopping the use by state bodies of illegal stamps restricting access to documents and at having such documents declassified. The document given below suggests that the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine (a body, incidentally, anti-constitutional and illegal) thinks that (attention!) citizens have no right to approach the President! No comment, read it for yourselves. And we promise to describe continuation of this story, which will not be endless, even if the officials want that. We will win together! *** From the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine To [V.G]…. Dear Mr G, With regard to your request for information, I am instructed by the President of Ukraine to inform you that in for the purpose of ensuring access, public availability and openness of legal information for individuals and legal entities, a Single State Register of Normative Acts has been created which contains all acts issued by the President of Ukraine, laws and other normative-legal acts. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for a complex of measures for ensuring access by individuals and legal entities to the Register and providing them with information. The Procedure for this Single State Register and its use, approved by Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 376 of 23 April 2001, provides in particular that individuals and legal entities can obtain copies of standard texts of normative-legal acts from the information fund of the Register in electronic form or on paper by approaching the Registrar or by direct sanctioned access to the information fund of the Register. It should be taken into account that, pursuant to Article 34 of the Constitution of Ukraine and Article 37 of the Law of Ukraine “On information” some documents are not liable to disclosure following a request for information, namely, official documents containing information classified as a state secret, confidential information and information that cannot be divulged in accordance with other legal acts. According to the Law of Ukraine “On state secrets”, a permit is needed to see acts issued by the Head of the state and other normative-legal acts with stamps restricting access.. We wish to point out that, in compliance with Article 32 of the Law of Ukraine “On information”, a citizen has the right to address request for information to state bodies, but not to the Head of state. We would mention also that on the instructions of President of Ukraine V. Yushchenko, in the interests of improving normative-legal regulation on ensuring transparency and openness of activities of the Head of state, state authorities and bodies of local self-government, and of preventing unwarranted restriction on the right of access to information, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, taking into consideration the provisions of international legal acts and world experience, is preparing relevant suggestions for introducing amendments to legislation regulating relations in the area of information. The Secretariat of the President of Ukraine, taking into account the requirements of legislation, is permanently working to prevent llegal restriction of access to the acts issued by the head of state. Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding which was due to technical causes. I. Vasyuyik, First Deputy Head of the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine
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