After Tomorrow?

Full judicial openness is promised to Russians the day after tomorrow – on July 1. Meanwhile, review of a regional bill on access to information on activities of peace justice in the Leningrad Oblast is postponed.

On July 1, 2010, the federal law on access to judicial information comes into force. The easiest way to observe it and to provide citizens with vast information volumes accumulated by courts is to publish the information on courts’ official websites.

However, Valery Serdyukov, Governor of Leningrad Oblast, is against this idea proposed by the regional parliament, explaining his position with large human and financial resources needed for connecting judicial districts to Internet and for re-designing their websites.

We shold remind that the law was approved in December 2008, so that the courts have a year and a half to be prepared to its enforcement. Mandatory placing specific information in the Internet is one of the most interesting norms of a new law.

Authorities of the Leningrad Oblast are not too attached to ITs. In the IIFD’s 2009 informational openness rating, the Leningrad Oblast government official website helds 49th place (of 83 regional executive government bodies), rated by 27,81%. The official website of the Leningrad Oblast Legislative Assembly is 55th among regional legislative bodies, rated by 35,88%. By the way, the regional bill on access to judicial information is not available at the regional parliament’s official website, and no search function works at it.

Regional parliamentarians will resume discussing the bill on July 7.