This case was initiated by Media Law Institute as a result of the refusal of the Central Election Commission to provide it the profiles of the candidates to the Parliament.

In November 2014 Media Law Institute (now – Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law) appealed to the Central Election Commission with a request to provide it with the profiles copies of heads of political parties that have won the parliamentary elections in 2014 – Vitaliy Klychko, Yulia Tymoshenko, Oleh Liashko, Arseniy Yatsenuk and Yuriy Boyko. The Commission refused to satisfy it considering the requested information to be confidential.

This case was supported by the Fund of protection of the right of access to information and passed all three instances in the court.

Despite the requester`s arguments on the violation of the law by information administrator (including unlawful consideration of information about job, civic activity and families of politicians as confidential), first instance court and appeal court rulings were against the applicant.

Additionally, the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine stated that the arguments “show no necessity to check the materials of the case”, thus preventing the cassation proceeding under paragraph 5 of Part 5 of Art. 214 of the Code of Administrative Procedure (unsubstantiated complaints).

Against this background, Media Law Institute has submitted an application to the European Court of Human Rights asking the court to recognize the refusal to provide the requester with the copies of politicians` profiles as a violation of the right to freedom of expression.

This statement was declared admissible and in several years it will be considered on its merits by the Court.