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14.08.2014
On 8 August civic experts together with the experts of the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights held a seminar "Access to public information: how to arrange the effective work of the government agency" for the officials of the municipal authorities.
In 2011 a very progressive Act "On the access to public information" was adopted in Ukraine. Above act was expected to solve all the problems arising out of non-admission of the public to the unprivileged documents of the central and local authorities.
However, in practice the citizens still cannot fully enjoy their right to access public information due to unsufficient execution of the act by the administrators of the information. This situation is attributable not only to unwillingness of the officials to perform their obligations under the law and to provide access to the information, which was restricted before but also to lack of knowledge and understanding of the law itself.
These particular problems in the city of Khmelnytskyi were addressed through holding the seminar "Access to public information: how to arrange the effective work of the government agency". During the event the representatives of local authorities received comprehensive expert assistance on the implementation of the Act of Ukraine "On the access to public information." Specifically, the seminar participants could understand the notion of public information better, become familiar with the openness principle, types of public information and information, to which the Act of Ukraine "On the access to public information" does not apply. As the result of the seminar the participants received methodological recommendations of the experts on facilitating access to public information within the government agency, which were developed by the civic experts as well as skills on applying the Act.
The participants of the seminar included 40 officials, representatives of municipal authorities, journalists, civic activists and expert of Khmelnytska region. Iryna Kushnir (representative of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights), Roman Golovenko (Institute of Mass Information), Viktor Taran (Center of Political Studies and Analytics), Daria Slyzkonis (Center of Political Studies and Analytics) acted as coaches.
The seminar in Khmelnytskyi took place within the framework of the project "Training of government officials in performing the provisions of the Act of Ukraine "On the access to public information" in Ukraine." The second stage of the project was launched on 10 April, 2014. The project is being implemented by the Center of Political Studies and Analytics and the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights with the support of the United Nations Development Programme within the framework of programme "Assistance to the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights." The purpose of the project is arranging and holding comprehensive educational events aimed at assistance to officials in implementing the provisions of the Act of Ukraine "On the access to public information."
Within the framework of the project a toolkit for the local authorities on sufficient performance of the Act of Ukraine "On the access to public information" was issued as well as infographics on the notion and procedure of classifying the information as privileged.