In a week where The Social Network, the film about the creation of the Facebook website, has been dominating the Golden Globe awards in the US, it’s great to see politicians uniting to reinforce the freedom of information in Ukraine.
On 13 January the Rada adopted two important laws on access to public information. The laws set out clearly the rights of journalists and other citizens to obtain information from government bodies as well as other provisions to make life easier for journalists. These laws are excellent news: when the OSCE media freedom representative, Dunja Mijatovic visited Kyiv last October, she noted that Ukraine had achieved a great level of media freedom but should take urgent steps to safeguard it. She went on to condemn reports of physical attacks against journalists in Ukraine and urged the Rada to adopt an access to information law. This has now happened; and the fact that the law enjoys broad cross-party support is a reflection of the fact that the law itself is a good one. The next stage, however, is just as important. That is to ensure that the law is actually applied; and that Ukrainians really do receive the access to information which it promises. I shall be following this during the coming year with great interest.
The title, incidentally, comes from a thoughtful article by Dunja Mijatovic herself entitled “Freedom of Expression vs Regulation“, in which she not only quotes Cato (“Where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarcely call anything his own”) but also notes the role of William Gibson in coining the term “Cyberspace”. I also mentioned the latter in my recent blog, Cyberpunks and the matrix: on-line Kyiv off-line.