Government and Society: Public Access to Official Information in Russia Forum to Be Held in Moscow, June 25-26

An all-Russian forum entitled Government and Society: Public Access to Official Information in the Russian Federation will be held in Moscow, in the Russian State Library on June 25 and 26. According to the press service of Russia's Ministry of Culture, discussed at the forum will be the problem of the insufficient legal awareness of Russian public.

The event is organised by the Ministry of Culture of Russia, the Federal Agency for Governmental Communications and Information, the Russian Foundation for Legal Reform, the Russian committee for the Information for All UNESCO programme, and the Russian State Library.

The lack of a system of public access to the legal acts issued by every branch and at every level of legislative powers is the principal obstacle on Russia's way to becoming a truly democratic state. Such system has been jointly created by the Ministry of Culture, the Federal Agency for Governmental Communications and Information, and the Russian Foundation for Legal Reform since 1998.

According to the press service of the Ministry of Culture, in Russia, about 1,500 libraries provide legal information to public. The 367 centres of legal information created on the basis of some of these libraries exist in 69 administrative regions of the country. In 2001, they provided services to about 1 million Russia's citizens.