Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions against law promised to Europe

The Verkhovna Rada has deferred consideration of the Law on Access to Public Information under 2 November this year.  This decision was voted for by 251 National Deputies.

Before that vote, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Volodymyr Lytvyn had put the draft law up for voting, but did not receive the needed amount of votes.

174 Deputies voted for it: 1 from the Party of the Regions; 98 from BYuT; 52 from Our Ukraine – People’s Self Defence; 20 members of Lytvyn’s bloc and 3 not affiliated to a specific faction.

The Deputies refused to pass the draft law despite the positive assessment from the profile committee.

After the vote, Lytvyn asked the Deputies to stop putting off consideration of this issue.  He also indicated his opinion of deputies who assure European structures about how they’re almost at the finishing post on the issue of this law which the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has called on Ukraine to pass. Yanukovych said that he would sign if it was voted for.

The explanatory note to the Law states that it is aimed at “ensuring transparency and openness of those with authority and creating mechanisms enabling each person access to public information”.

The authors of the draft law are members of the Centre for Political and Legal Reform, the Media Law Institute; the Association of Media Lawyers, the Institute for Mass Information, the Independent Media Trade Union and others.