The Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law is a think and act tank that has been working in the Ukrainian public sector since 2005, focusing on developing independent media, supporting public platforms and movements, and building the rule of law in Ukraine.

Our mission is to promote the development of a society of active and responsible citizens.

To this end, we support and develop community initiatives, implement educational programs for different audiences, develop and advocate for quality legislation, protect freedom of speech, provide impartial legal expert evaluation and advise journalists, work to implement government accountability and rule of law.

We are a part of society and it is on us that it depends. We are working to shape it. A society of active and responsible citizens means that citizens must be active and at the same time be aware of their responsibilities.

In modern Ukraine, the level of activism is quite high, but so should be the level of responsibility. That is why the focus on responsibility is most important in our work. What do mission and values mean in practice? We are active in analyzing judges and influencing judicial reform; at the same time, we act responsibly, giving the right to reply, remembering about the presumption of innocence, and ensuring high information accuracy. Active journalists seek to find important information, while responsible ones do not forget that the interests of society are paramount. Responsible drivers and passengers are concerned about their own safety and that of others. We teach activists to request access to public information, but we do not support those who thoughtlessly ask for thousands of pages just to hamper the activities of a state authority. Being a responsible citizen also means not allowing the advertising and sale of tobacco to children.

Our values are proactivity, responsibility, efficiency and impartiality. We are not sitting back and waiting, instead we are actualizing important problems in society, we take responsibility to develop a plan to solve them, to advocate for it and to achieve results. We are focused on the result rather than the process. We are impartial – neither businesses nor political parties determine our goals and areas of activity.

Pursuing its mission, we have focused our work on three areas: Rule of Law, Independent Media and Civil Society.

We have been working in the public sector of Ukraine since 2005, starting our work with a specialization in media law. Before 2016, our organization was called the Media Law Institute. You can watch a video on the transformation from the Media Law Institute to the Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law here.