This section is designed to cover the activities within the project “Government Accountability through the Informed Society”. Such project was launched by Ukraine National Initiatives to Enhance Reforms (UNITER), a program funded by USAID and implemented by Pact Inc. The project is aimed at strengthening the responsibility of governmental bodies and at increasing the transparency of their performance. The following activities are planned in order to reach this goal.

• conducting public expertises of governmental activity;
• submitting informational requests to state authorities with the purpose of receiving information of public importance;
• appealing illegal rejections in access to information to competent governmental bodies and courts;
• creating a hot-line for NGOs and mass media in order to provide consultations on conducting public expertises and submitting informational requests;
• monitoring the transparency of government activities;
• lobbying and supporting progressive amendments to Ukrainian legislation;
• promoting democratic standards in access to information through educational activities and publications in media.

Public expertises of executive authorities’ performance are going to be one of the most important activities within the framework of the project. Such form of public control is provided by the Decree of the Government of Ukraine № 976, 5.11.2008, “On the Procedure of Supporting of Providing the Public Expertise of Government Activity”. The concept of conducting public expertises is relatively new for Ukrainian society, and the practical experience in this area is quite modest. Thus, the project is aimed at the active implementation of this method of public control.

Media Law Institute plans to conduct 10 public expertises in such areas as state registration of films, support of Ukrainian books publishing, control over the legality of advertising, registration of press, public morals protection etc.

It is supposed that the project will be completed in two years. The key long-term results expected from the implementation of the project are the increase in transparency of state authorities’ performance; improvement of public control mechanism; establishing of an efficient model of state authorities and public institutions cooperation.

The participants of the working group are Media Law Institute lawyers; Roman Golovenko, Institute of Mass Information lawyer; Victor Maykov, Center on Public Media Foundation expert, and Antonina Prudko, Program Officer of the UNITER Project.

This section was created by Media Law Institute as a part of its project implemented under Ukraine National Initiatives to Enhance Reforms (UNITER) program, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Pact Inc.

The development of this section is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents of the section are the responsibility of Media Law Institute and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, Pact Inc. or the United States Government.

No part of this section may be reproduced or transferred in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or including photocopying or by any information storage retrieval system, without the proper reference to the original source.