The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the concealment of master plans of various urban settlements from Ukrainian citizens is a violation of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The Court recognized that Article 10 of the Convention on freedom of expression, which includes the right to freely receive and impart information, was violated.  The judgement was made following a complaint filed by the NGO “Eastern Ukrainian Center for Civic Initiative” that has been working for many years to get access to the master plans of various urban settlements for the public.

While protecting open green spaces and fighting corruption in city councils, the NGO discovered in 2007 that in many Ukrainian cities, local governments were concealing master plans. These important public documents define the planning and development of a city. The information in the master plans contains data, which are essential for the residents, such as where a school, highway, residential areas will be built and where green spaces will be left. At the same time, design institutes that develop master plans for urban settlements had the opportunity to classify parts of the documents that contain sensitive information. However, being paid by city councils, designers rarely bothered to make master plans as accessible as possible to citizens.

After identifying the problem, in 2009, human rights activists requested over 100 city councils all over the country to provide access to their master plans. This work was supported by the Rule of Law Programme of the International Renaissance Foundation. Only five (5) city councils provided the human rights defenders with copies of their master plans. Others refused access to their public documents in various ways.

Human rights activists appealed the refusals in national courts. However, Ukrainian courts upheld the illegal decisions of city councils, and in 2012, the organisation filed a number of complaints with the European Court of Human Rights.

After 11 years of trial, the court issued a positive decision and recognised that the concealment of urban planning documentation by city councils was a violation of Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

In their complaint to the ECtHR, human rights activists noted that the recognition of the violation would be sufficient satisfaction and did not demand financial compensation. Therefore, the recognition of this violation will not result in any penalties from the state budget in these financially difficult times for Ukraine. At the same time, the organisation believes that this judgement will serve as a reminder to Ukrainian officials that information about their management of public resources should be public.

“As citizens, we continue to face cases when the authorities try to hide certain public documents regulating the distribution of public resources. This judgement of the European Court clearly reminds both citizens and officials that such actions of civil servants are illegal. They violate important civil rights and hold back our country’s development,” said Volodymyr Shcherbachenko, head of the EUCCI NGO.