Cherkasy City Council plans to cancel session livestreams until martial law is lifted

The Cherkasy City Council plans to change the regulations on session livestreaming. By the new rules, online livestreams of sessions will only resume 30 days after the martial law is lifted, while video recordings of the sessions will be preserved for five years.

The draft decision was registered on May 31. It is has been posted on the City Council website.

According to the draft decision, the rule changes were prompted by the amendment to the law "On local self-government in Ukraine" regarding the transparency of local self-government.

Deputies plan to make changes to the section of the rules on "Openness and publicity of the Council's work". The changes will mean that the Council's plenary meetings meetings of the standing commission will only be livestreamed online 30 days after martial law is lifted.

The changes also imply that plenary meetings of the Council and standing commission meetings will be recorded on video, with the recordings set to be stored for at least five years. The video recording must be make public immediately after the end of the meeting, no later than a day after the meeting, on the Council's official website or elsewhere so as to ensure open access to the video.

To date, all meetings of the Cherkasy City Council have been livestreamed on the Council's YouTube channel. However, commission sessions were not livestreamed and there was no video recording.

In May, the Kropyvnytsky City Council canceled online livestreams of their sessions.