Supreme Court declines ZHAR.INFO's motion to open case over VRU Apparatus complaint

The Supreme Court, consisting of a panel of Cassation Administrative Court judges, declined a motion by ZHAR.INFO journalist Alyona Bereza to open cassation proceedings in the case against the VRU Apparatus and the VRU Apparatus Department for Citizens' Appeals.

The journalist received a ruling to that effect to her inbox on the Digital Court portal on April 29, 2025, and shared it with the Institute of Mass Information.

On March 6, 2025, the Administrative Court of Appeal No. 7 granted a part of the appeal by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (VRU) Apparatus in the lawsuit against ZHAR.INFO on access to information on deputies' business trips since the day of the large-scale invasion and until the query submission date. The Court of Appeal overturned the part of the first instance court's ruling ordering the VRU Apparatus and the Department for Citizens' Appeals to provide the information requested by the online media.

Disagreeing with the second instance court's ruling, Bereza filed a cassation appeal on April 7, 2025, requesting that the March 6, 2025 resoluton by the Administrative Court of Appeal No. 7 be overturned and that the October 22, 2024 decision by the Khmelnytskyi District Administrative Court be upheld.

The court reviewed the arguments in the cassation appeal and concluded that it failed to prove that circumstances were exceptional and warranting a cassation trial in the case according to the Administrative Judicature Code of Ukraine.

“Since the cassation appeal contested court rulings in the case which were tried within the fast-track claim proceedings, and the review of the arguments in the cassation appeal together with the details of the case as reflected in the decisions by the previous instances provide no grounds for concluding that there are exceptional circumstances in the case as outlined in paragraph 2 of part 5 of Article 328 of the AJC of Ukraine, the opening of cassation proceedings in this case should be denied,” the Supreme Court’s ruling states.

The online media outlet ZHAR.INFO is analyzing the decisions received throughout the review of the case in three instances and will decide whether to appeal to the first instance court again in order to receive the requested documents from the VRU Apparatus Department for Citizens' Appeals and the parliamentary Apparatus itself after all.