Journalist complained to Ombudsman about refusal received from Court

Kamenets City Court (Khmelnytsky region) refused to provide information (copies of the judge, Elena Shvets autobiography) to Dmytro Sheremet, journalist of the online edition of  "Nezalezhny hromadsky portal" (Independent public portal). IMI representative in Kmelnytsky region says that journalist sent compalin to Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. 

According to Dmytro Sheremet, he wanted to know the date of birth of judge Elena Shvets. He needed this information to work on the material.

"At first I asked the judge about her birth date, but she refused to answer, and said that it is a personal information. After that, I filed an official request, "- said the journalist.

Sheremet sent request by e-mail on Oct.5. He received response on October 13, which says that "autobiography of judge Shvets O.D. is in her personal file and it is personal and confidential information." In addition, the document states that personal files of civil servants are documents for official use. The head of the court Roman Savchuk signed the document-answer.

Given this explanation, journalist complained to Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights about groundless refusal.

The representative of Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Iryna Kushnir said that request for inspection of circumstances forwarded to Kamianets-Podilskyi PD CANP in Khmelnitsky region.

"December 16, after I inquired about the fate of my appeal, I received a call and was told that my case doesn't have criminal or administrative violations. Law enforcement officials refer to the fact that the information I was seeking is a personal data", -  journalist says.

IMI media lawyer Roman Golovenko noted that the date of birth is not always a public information.