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Access to information in electronic environment discussed at the Presidential Library
April 13, 2012 the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library hosted an international conference "The Right of Access to Information: Opportunities and Limits in the Electronic Environment", organized jointly with the Russian Lawyers' Association.
The Russian Federation officially seeks to ensure the completeness, accuracy and accessibility of socially significant information. The society feels the need to obtain information, but many legal issues remain unresolved. The conference covered theoretical and practical aspects of implementation and improvement of legislation on access to socially important information.
The plenary session opened with a welcoming speech of the Presidential Library Director General, A. P. Vershinin. Key issues of the conference have been highlighted by Deputy Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation, V. L. Evtukhov, President of the Russian Library Association, V. R. Firsov, Director General of the Russian State Library, A. I. Visliy, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Council and the Russian Committee of UNESCO program "Information For All" E .I. Kuzmin.
Representatives of the State and Law Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences - Head of Informational Law Department, I. L. Bachilo and a leading researcher of the Institute, V. N. Monakhov - attended the event through video conferencing from Moscow.
As noted at the briefing, anticipating the conference, chairman of the Board of the Freedom of Information Foundation, I. Yu Pavlov, a right of access to official information is new to Russia. In practice of its application there are many problems, and, according to the speaker, it is possible, that the state apparatus itself is not yet ready to share information.
It was noted at the conference that the work of the Supreme Arbitration Court today is one of the most successful resources of presence of state authority on the Internet. As emphasized E. G. Avakian, Chief Test and Analysis Department of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation, currently the tribunals disclose information as fully as possible, and their resources allow people to get information in real time.
According to the attendees, there is a problem of divergence of interests of the society as a consumer of information, with the interests of holders of the rights. Yoram Elcaim, Head of Legal Department of
The conference participants were offered a real-time demonstration of the remote access technology to the resources of the Presidential Library.
After the plenary session the conference continued in two break up groups, which addressed issues of access to information about the activities of public authorities and the availability of scientific and educational, cultural, educational and media information in the electronic environment.
The forum participants included representatives of the Ministry of Justice of Russia, the Federal Security Service, the Interior Ministry, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and the leading public institutions in the field of information and law.
Experts from Google, Yandex and Wikimedia RU, as well as the scientists dealing with the legal regulation in the field of information, have delivered their speeches. Specialists from other Russian cities and CIS countries have attended the forum through video-conferencing.
The first theoretical and practical conference on legal issues of information dissemination in the electronic environment was held at the Presidential Library April 14, 2011. Its materials are published in a freely distributable form on the library’s portal.