On June 18, 2010, the Dtate Duma approved a bill¹ amending the laws on personal data and on access to judicial information. On June 23, it was approved by the Council of Federation.

On June 22, a bill was submitted to the State Duma, proposing to amend the provision of the Federal Law “On State Secret”, Article 5, in order to modify the list of information defined as state secret. Proposed amendments are not large but in fact they can significantly restrict information accessibility for the wide public.

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 June 22-23, an expert meeting “FOI Law Approval in Kazakhstan: Circumstances and Prospects” took place in Astana.

The Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No.333 fom May 4, 2010 approves the instruction on receiving, registering, and resolving applications, messages and other information on crimes and accidents in the internal affairs’ bodies of Russia.

Iceland approves a bill stating that the country will be a worldwide storage for information that can not be published in the country of its origin.