In Mykolaiv, head of court who tried to hide his property declaration before, dodges again

Head of Zavodskyi district court in the city of Mykolaiv Serhiy Shcherbyna dodges from providing to a journalist of the online media outlet “Prestupnosti.Net” a copy of his property, income and expenses declaration for 2014. The judge replied that a copy of his declaration is published on the official website of the court. But by coming up with this excuse, the judge violated part 2 of Article 22 of the Law of Ukraine "On access to public information", which specifically indicates that the fact that information requested is in public domain cannot be an excuse for refusing to provide such information.

A year before, the same judge refused to provide to journalist Andriy Lokhmatov declarations of all the judges of the court, and because of this the journalist sued him. The court and the court of appeal resolved the case in favor of their colleagues, thus Lokhmatov advanced the case to European Human Rights Court, where it is still being processed.