Court didn’t punish officials for failure to present information to ecologists
The Hrodna Region Economic Court refused to oblige the
direction of the construction of the nuclear power plant in Astravets to familiarize
the public circles with documentation concerning the NPP construction. According
to Regnum, this information was given
on 12 January by a lawyer of the Ekadom NGO,
Siarhei Mahonau.
The lawsuit was filed last spring. According to Mr. Mahonau, the refusal of the
officials to present the documents is a violation of the Aarhus
convention and the Law On Environmental
Protection.
As a representative of Ekadom Iryna
Sukhii said on live air of Euroradio,
all attempts to receive the needed documents either in paper or in electronic
files failed. The officials stated that these documents were their ‘value’ and
that they spent some means. They proposed the ecologists to familiarize with
3,000 pages in their office. ‘It is a violation of Aarhus Convention. Ecological
information cannot be anyone’s property! It is the first case of a trial concerning
access to information,’ commented Iryna Sukhii.
According to Mr. Mahonau, the official reason for the refusal to present the
documentation is that it was almost completely uploaded to the website of the direction
and was available to the public there. Ecologists say that the direction should
have done it much earlier.
