City council of Zaporizhzhia wants money for access to documents requested by journalist

In the city council of Zaporizhzhia, the officials agreed to respond to information request of the editor of the web-site 061.ua Tetiana Honchenko only if she pays for photocopies of the documents related to this. The price of copying documents is 419 hryvnias. Honchenko reported this in her Facebook entry and confirmed to local IMI representative. The officials did not agree to allow the journalist to scan or photograph the required documents, too, demanding payment for this anyway. The data requested was the minutes of the meeting of the tender commission for assigning managers of apartment buildings in Zaporizhzhia. IMI media lawyer Maksym Ratushnyi considers such actions of the city council a violation that limits access to public information, as the Law on access to public information overtly specifies the duty of the administrators to create conditions for unrestricted copying, photographing, scanning, or recording them. As the local IMI representative added, she knows at least one more case of such practices of the city council - journalist Oleksandr Pobil received a similar response to his request from the city council officials.