How a Journalist Has Reached Justice

Some officials are still sure that their official information access denials can cause nothing more serious for them than five minutes of shame in court. We should explode this fallacy.

A fairy-tale usually ends with wedding. Maybe tale-tellers have been afraid to contine because the future is not so bright? Court hase histories are often look like fairy-tales: after a “happy end” – a court decision in favor of the plaintiff – he or she meets new problems seeking for observance of the decision and for punishment for law violations.

On March 12, 2010, Andrey Voronin, a journalist from St.-Petersburg, went to the administration of the Kirovsky district to attend a meeting dedicated to town-planning issues, including renovation and demolition of apartment houses (with participation of residents of condemned houses).

But Grigory Shapovalov, the administration press secretary, met the journalist in the doors and forbade him to attend the meeting referring to some unknown “working instruction”.

The journalist contested the official’s actions in the Kirovsky district corut of St.-Petersburg. The IIFd lawyers rendered legal support to the plaintiff.

The defendant’s representative strictly stated that Shapovalov was not guilty of anything since he had known nothing of the new FOI Law obliging government and local self-government bodies to enable presence of citizens at “collegium government bodies and collegium bodies of local self-government, as well as at meetings of collegium entities within government bodies and collegium entities within bodies of local self-government”.

So, Andrey Voronin appeared the first one over Russia to win a court case, referring to the FOI Law provisions.

Later, an application to the Kirovsky district administration was filed, demanding to bring Grigory Shapovalov to responsibility. The reply signed by the administration head brings excuses to the journalist and informs that an official reproof was given to Shapovalov.

Evgeny Smirnov, IIFD lawyer: «According to the Law on State Civil Service of the Russian Federation, a line-of-duty investigation should be performed and its materials and results (a possible result is an official reproof like in this case) remain in the official’s personal case”.

So this tale about a journalist seeking for justice has finally come to its happy end.