Amendments to the Law on the Russian Federation Prosecution Authorities

Amendments proposed to the law on prosecution authorities aim to eliminate ungrounded refusals to provide citizens access to prosecutor inspections’ materials.

The bill is submitted to the State Duma for review on June 3.

On the one hand, proposed amendments seeking elimination of ungrounded refusals to provide citizens access to prosecutor inspections’ materials are undoubtedly positive.

On the other hand, the bill does not provide citizens with full access to prosecutor inspections’ materials. It contains a provision that “inspection materials are provided only after its completion to persons whose interests were touched within the inspection“. This can serve as ground to refuse to provide the information to other citizens though materials of specific inspections can sometimes touch rights of general public and have great social significance.

According to the FOI law actual cinse January 1, 2010, information on activities of state bodies should be available not only for citizens whose rights are directly touched by activities in question.

Our opinion is that the law on prosecution authorities should be amended, taking into account the FOI law also.

Darya Nazarova, IIFD senior lawyer