Some Cabinet of Ministers Resolutions to see the light of day

According to a statement released today on the Ministry of Justice’s official website, the Cabinet of Ministers is planning to remove the stamps “Not to be printed” and “Not to be published” from Cabinet of Ministers Resolutions and Instructions issued between 1991 and 2005 since these stamps are not allowed for by Ukrainian legislation.  The Minister of Justice Mykola Onishchuk informs that the relevant Instruction on revoking these stamps has already gone through checking procedure in the Ministry. He adds that the Instruction is aimed at ensuring citizens’ rights of access to information, as guaranteed by the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The statement goes on to say that the Cabinet of Ministers plans to ensure free access to legislative acts which were not on general access in previous years.

The Minister states that restrictions in access to more than one thousand government acts issued between 1991 and 2005 will be removed.

Approximately 300 others will have the above mentioned stamps removed, however will still not be available to public scrutiny with another stamp “For official use only” being used instead.  It is stated that almost all these acts deal with defence and security or contain issues relating to economic competition.

www.minjust.gov.ua  (slightly abridged)

It is worth noting that KHPG and other human rights groups have also expressed concern about the use of the stamp “For official use only”.  This may, in contrast to the first two, be envisaged by legislation, however the question remains as to whether removing such acts from public scrutiny is warranted. 

Once more information becomes available, they will be making all efforts to establish what security-related information or that dealing with economic competition is still being kept from the public.