Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law demands from polling companies to disclose the customers and purchasers of the electoral opinion polls. This change will help to define which polls are trustworthy, because the last published polls had differences, far bigger than the measurement error. Additionally, according to the Law of Ukraine “On the Elections of People`s Deputies of Ukraine”, the information about the customer of the polls must be open.

The NGO prepared and sent four information requests to group “Rating”, “Social Monitoring Centre”, KMIS (Kyiv International Institute of Sociology) and Razumkov Centre. According to the Law “On Access to the Public Information”, even private firms are obligated to disclose the requested information in case of public interest.

«People have the right to know who ordered the polls. In case of ignoring, we are ready to go to the court and protect our right on information. As an organization, we have a huge experience in court hearings on access to the information», – commented Taras Shevchenko, CEDEM’s director.

According to the article 67 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Elections of People`s Deputies of Ukraine”, «Information agencies and mass media, in case of publishing the opinion poll results on the election theme, have to disclose the full name of polling organization as well as the customer of the polls». The law also establishes the liability: a fine of 170-340 hryvnias (article 212-20, Code of Ukraine on Administrative Violations. In addition, the publishing of the customers’ names is a part of international election standards, particularly established by the Council of Europe.