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Officials think up another classification stamp for making normative acts secret

18.09.2006   
Olga Goncharova
When the public proves that the stamps being used to hide normative acts are illegal, the authorities could change their ways. Some unfortunately prefer to change the words

Since the beginning of 2005 the “Maidan” Alliance has been running a campaign “To be printed!” to have all “secret” material issued by the authorities made public.  The action has received support form the International Renaissance Foundation as part of a program “Exercising the right to access to information about the activities of the authorities”.

Throughout this campaign the “Maidan” Alliance has been calling for all illegal stamps restricting access to be removed from all normative acts issued by Ukrainian state bodies.  Those documents which really contain state secrets should be classified as state secrets in accordance with the Law “On state secrets”, or attached to particular departments as “For official use only”. Others without exception should be made open in full to the public.

The reaction of the authorities has been very specific, and is yet another demonstration not only of a move backwards, and also of the attempt to avoid public criticism, while keeping things the way they were. The public demonstrate the illegality of the stamps “Not to be printed” and “Not to be published”, which are not allowed for by the Law “On information” and so the officials think up another stamp – “For internal use” which is nonetheless equally illegal.

This very stamp was used by the Ministry of Agricultural Policy for Orders No. 472 and 473 from 28 August 2006. Incidentally the Minister of Agricultural Policy is Y.F. Melnyk, appointed to this position from the Communists’ quota.

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