Human Rights Commissioner opens proceedings over City Council’s denial of access to ZHAR.INFO

The Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights has opened proceedings following a complaint by ZHAR.INFO, who reported that the Khmelnytskyi City Council had refused to share documents (namely, review findings on the Council’s draft decisions) upon the news outlet’s request.

ZHAR.INFO founder and journalist Alyona Bereza reported this to the Institute of Mass Information.

Earlier, the media outlet addressed the Khmelnytskyi City Council with a query, asking for some of the Council’s draft decisions and specialised departments’ findings on them. These findings are provided by the legal support department, the City Council representation, or other specialised units when a decision is being drafted to be later reviewed and put to a vote by MPs at a session.

The Council declined the query, citing a decree by the mayor that says that such findings are classified information.

Disagreeing with the officials’ response, ZHAR.INFO filed a complaint with the Commissioner. The latter opened proceedings, ordering a full and comprehensive probe into the situation reported in the complaint.

“In order to fully and comprehensively establish all the details outlined in your appeal and in view of the need for additional control measures, the further review [of your appeal] will be carried out as part of the Commissioner’s open proceedings,” responded Oksana Kizayeva, the VRU Commissioner for Human Rights representative in Khmelnytskyi oblast.

At the same time, journalist Alyona Bereza reported that the mayor promised to deal with this situation during a press conference with media representatives on November 20 after an extraordinary session of the Khmelnytskyi City Council.

“This was a big surprise for us. Over the years of operating as a civil society organisation, and now as an online news outlet based on it, this is the first time we have encountered such a situation. We first appealed against the refusal to share the requested findings. For us, this is the highest priority right now, because we need them to write an article. If the situation is not resolved, we are ready to appeal this denial in court,” said Alyona Bereza.

Earlier, the Komyshuvakha Town Council (Zaporizhzhia oblast) declined 21 queries sent in October by Veronika Khorolska, journalist with the Zaporizhzhia news outlet SODA.