Ukraine: Too Much Openness and Transparency?

Judicial openness and transparency is a most exciting issue. While Russia discusses official websites of the courts, Ukrainian judicial officials protest against obligatory open publication of their income/property declarations.

According to the Ukrainian law on the judiciary, a judge must provide a copy of his/her income and property declaration to be published at the official web portal “Judicial Power of the Ukraine”. But the declaration form developed by the Ministry of Finances includes the residence address and addresses of realty objects owned by the applicant.

Of course judges do not wish to publish these data: physical persecution of a judge after some loud case is more than possible, and open publication of judges’ addresses makes persecution easier. Income declaration publication is a positive novelty but in this case required transparency seems excessive.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Finances is developing a new declaration form supposing to protect some personal data from open publication.