At the same time, the Ministry of Justice referred to the Presidential Decree, which had already expired by the time the order was issued.
Almost two months after the start of the war, the Ministry of Justice took the initiative to close open data managed by the Ministry of Justice. The relevant order was published on the website of the Ministry.
Neither the order itself nor any information on the website of the Ministry of Justice contains any clear explanation of this initiative.
The preamble to the order states that the Ministry of Justice decided to suspend the disclosure of information in accordance with Article 20 of the Law of Ukraine of May 12, 2015 № 389-VIII “On Martial Law” and the Decree of the President of Ukraine of February 24, 2022 № 64 “On Military situation in Ukraine “.
However, Article 20 of this law only allows restrictions on the rights and freedoms of citizens and legal entities in martial law, and refers to the articles of the Constitution on rights and freedoms that cannot be restricted. Which does not in any way explain the initiative of the Ministry of Justice .
And the Presidential Decree of February 24, 2022 imposed martial law for only 30 days . That is, at the time of the order of the Ministry of Justice, this normative act had expired in terms of martial law. And only on April 21, a week after the order of the Ministry of Justice, the Verkhovna Rada supported the presidential bill №7300, which martial law in Ukraine was extended for another 30 days – until May 25.
It should be noted that according to the order of the Ministry of Justice of March 28, 2016 № 897/5 “On approval of the List of information to be published in the form of open data, administered by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine”, Ministry of Justice administers the following open data :
- Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Individuals – Entrepreneurs and Public Associations;
- Unified Register of Notaries;
- State Register of Certified Judicial Experts;
- Unified Register of Special Forms of Notarial Documents;
- Notices of Auctions and Other Information on the Sale of Confiscated and Arrested Property and Their Results, on Property for Free Transfer;
- State Register of Printed Mass Media and news agencies as subjects of information activity;
- Unified register of enterprises in respect of which bankruptcy proceedings have been initiated;
- Unified state register of normative legal acts;
- Register of valid, blocked and revoked public key certificates;
- Register of administrative-territorial organization;
- Information on the automated system of enforcement proceedings;
- Unified register of debtors;
- Data from the central database of the system of electronic trading in seized property.
Now, at the initiative of the Ministry of Justice, administrators of the unified and state registers are obliged to delete already published information in the forms and open data.
