Case Summary and Outcome

The Kalininsky District Court of St. Petersburg, Russia held that regulations that set out procedures for declassifying documents and for extending terms of classification affect the rights of the general public and must therefore be publicly available.

This case analysis was contributed by Right2Info.org.

Facts

Many documents of the USSR as well as of modern Russia are classified as state secrets. Until recently the declassification procedure itself was also classified as “For Administrative Use Only”.

Historian Mikhail Zolotonosov learned about the existence of the legal document which regulates the declassification procedure – the Order on Archive Documents’ Declassification Procedure and Prolongation of Classification Terms (referred to as the Order) from a worker at one of the state archives. Zolotonosov asked the appropriate government body, the Interdepartmental Commission for the Protection of State Secret, for the Order. The Commission refused disclosure, asserting that the Order itself was also classified, and thus could not be disclosed. The historian appealed the refusal to Court.

Decision Overview

The Court noted that the Order affects the rights of the general public and ruled that it should be declassified and made available to the public.

In particular, the Order regulates how to handle information requests. According to Article 5 of the Federal Law on Providing Access to Information on the Activities of Government Bodies and Bodies of Local Self-Government, access to information may only be limited if it falls under an exemption stipulated by law. The Order does not fall under any exemption under the Federal Law. Additionally, the Federal Law on Information, Information Technology and Protection of Information only permits access to information to be limited by law. Thus, since no law limited access to the Order in question, the Court ordered its disclosure.