On 23 May 2024, the Ukrainian parliament voted in first reading a law which according to several Ukrainian media outlets and NGOs would limit journalists’ access to court decisions and other legal proceedings taking place at Ukrainian courts. A statement in which the media organizations called on parliament not to vote on the law was published on the same day. Signatories included the Institute of Mass Information (IMI), Detector Media, the Mediarukh movement, online media outlets Zaborona, Graty and Zhar.Info, as well as TV channel Espreso.
A similar, earlier statement was signed by NGOs from beyond the media sector and was published on May 16.
According to the draft legislation, courts would receive the right to delay the publication of rulings linked to Russia’s war of aggression, mobilization, and martial law in Ukraine more widely, to one year after the end of martial law. Courts would also be able to restrict the publication of some information under broadly defined “security interests”: the signatories of both appeals claimed that this term was too broad and also concerned information mentioned at a public court hearings or that which is already publicly available online.
Journalists and media NGOs accused the initiators of the bill of attempting to introduce censorship, claiming that the law would be a serious obstruction of their activities. Critics also claimed that the law would simply hide legal proceedings from Ukrainian society, but not from the wide category of Ukrainian judicial and security authorities, who would still have access to data considered to be sensitive. This new situation would not significantly lower the chances of sensitive information falling into Russian hands, but would prevent social control of judicial activities, critics argued.
According to independent news outlet Graty, committees at the Ukrainian parliament had earlier suggested that the text should be amended, as it allowed judges not to publish information already made public at court hearings, while also creating significant corruption risks.