Pavlov: war on corruption in Ingushetia should start with opening access to information

On the opinion of advocate and human rights defender Ivan Pavlov, director of the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), the war on corruption in Ingushetia should start with ensuring citizens' free access to about the operation of state bodies.

Mr Pavlov said to the "Caucasian Knot" that his Institute recently managed to achieve lifting by the website of state bodies of Ingushetia in one of its sections of restrictions on receipt of the data about financial activities of the authorities of the region.

Today at 1:00 p.m. Moscow time, the Institute of Regional Press in St Petersburg (73 Ligovskiy Avenue) will hold a press conference with promulgation of the rating of state bodies of Russia by the degree of availability of their information for citizens. At this event, representatives of the IDFI plan to promulgate the results of one of its annual studies implying monitoring of official websites of different state bodies. In particular, the report will present the monitoring results of official sites of state purchases made in different regions of Russia.

According to the director of the IDFI, the Institute not only conducts studies, but also initiates litigation in this sphere; and thanks to its work, practically all power bodies have its websites in the Internet at the federal level. However, not all of them follow the law on free access of citizens to their information.

"The Republic of Ingushetia (RI) is one of the examples. When we held monitoring, we noticed that they have a registration system in their website of state purchases. The registration is mandatory, aiming to identify the visitor by all his or her personal data: surname, name, patronymic, residence - that is, to find out everything prior to let access to tender documentation," Ivan Pavlov said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Meanwhile, according to the lawyer, the law assumes that there should be no restrictions on access to information whatsoever.

"Under the law, state bodies should not be unduly interested in these data," said Mr Pavlov. "Besides, when we began to get into the matter, it became clear that the registration form, recommended for filling in by the link (in the website of state purchases of the RI, - comment of the "Caucasian Knot"), led to the website of some Moscow-based private LLC (limited liability company). It turned out that the authorities of the republic had delegated their powers to decide, whether a person should be admitted to the website or not to some private company."

"Even without focusing specifically on Caucasian republics and SFD (South Federal District), I can already state that in our openness rating Ingushetia will be in the end of the list, at the lowermost level. And if Evkurov is really going to fight corruption, he should start with openness. This is medicine number one against any corruption," Mr Pavlov is convinced.