Main questions asked via IMI hotline in June concerned denial of access and information

In June 2020, IMI lawyers provided 14 consultations through the hotline of the Institute of Mass Information. 

The main issues that have been raised: denials of access for journalists to various meetings of power entities, failures to provide information upon the requests for public information, possibility to appeal against such actions of power entities. At the same time, journalists complained about the ineffectiveness of legal means aiming to protect their infringed rights. Thus, in fact, police failed to arrive to the place ignoring the call of journalists, or they failed to enter report on the incident with signs of a criminal offense to the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations. Failure to have proper response to the violations in compliance with the law, offsets new legislation, in particular aimed at strengthening the responsibility for violation of the rights of journalists.

The number of issues related to the election process and mass media involved in has also increased significantly. Despite the fact that the local election process has not yet begun, politicians and political parties are already actively campaigning. So, the mass media wanted toknow, whether it is necessary to set prices for campaigning and how to set it according to the new Electoral Code of Ukraine; how to correctly mark such information; what exactly may be said in such information, and what is prohibited; what responsibility will be imposed to the media if such information fails to comply with the law. We suppose that as the elections approach, the number of issues related to it will constantly increase. 

There were other issues related to the media activity. For example, what exactly video recordings could be made bymeans of drones and what legal acts regulate it; how exactly to place information saying the mass media outlet was not implicated in a smear campaigning on Facebook page; what are the rights of a media professional who is transferred to another position.

We remind that any journalist, mass media and other actors of media field can contact the IMI legal hotline and receive legal avice as to the issues related to the legal regulation of collecting, storing and disseminating of information, in particular via Internet. Legal advice is provided by media lawyers Roman Golovenko and Ali Safarov by phone 050-44-77-063 . Questions can also be sent to IMI e-mail: [email protected] . .