Today, the appeal of the Regional court of the Orenburg region upheld the decision of the first instance to declare illegal the action/inaction of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Property Relations upon the refusal to provide information to the media - the Editorial office of FREEPRESSA.
The lawsuit against the ministry was filed by the editor-in-chief of FREEPRESSA Maxim Rumyantsev last year, because the minister Alexander Sambursky twice refused to provide information to the media. The request concerned the privatization of the Orenburg Airport property complex and the provision of an appropriate Order by Minister Sambursky.
According to one of these refusals to respond to a media request, the Editorial Office submitted an application to the Prosecutor's office of the Orenburg region, but without success. The editor-in-chief of the publication Maxim Rumyantsev commented on the situation: "In the first case, the Orenburg prosecutor's office showed some loyalty to the ministry and the case came to naught. At that time, the prosecutors told us that they were waiting for a response from Yandex upon delivery of the letter to the MPR address and after receiving a response from Yandex, they would make a decision, but no answers from the prosecutor's office were received to our Editorial Office - in general, the case "sank". It was the same with the editorial request addressed to the head of the Novoorsky district.This is the second case on our account. The head of the district, Elena Semenova, refused to answer, we submitted an application to the prosecutor's office for bringing to administrative responsibility, it also "drowned" - there was no procedural response then. Therefore, my lawyers and I understood that it remains to go to court ourselves and prove the illegality of inaction by officials of the government of the Orenburg region. Thank God and thanks to our judges, the court's decision today was in our favor. Once again, we have shown and proved that in the fight for your rights and the law, you need to go to the end and only then you will win. I no longer have any hope for the Orenburg Region Prosecutor's office. What can they do? Only to make publications on behalf of Ruslan Medvedev and statements in the mass media, but we, journalists, can do this. Then how does the prosecutor, denounced by the authorities, differ from us, journalists? Only we do it at the call of our hearts, and they do it at the state expense. We expect protection and support from them, but very often it turns out that it is in vain. The prosecutor's office is not able to protect us. Thanks to our judges that the law is still working in court. Of course, the question arises for me - and then what do our prosecutors do for our money?", - summed up the editor-in-chief of the publication Maxim Rumyantsev.
Alexander Sambursky, the Minister of Natural Resources and Property Relations of the Orenburg Region, did not appear at any of the court sessions during these few months. In court, on behalf of the MPR, only representatives of the department were present at some meetings. Today, the decision of the court of appeal immediately after the announcement entered into force.
This is the second such victory on Rumyantsev's account. For the first time, he and his lawyers proved through the court the illegality of the inaction of the head of the Information Policy Department of the administration of the Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region, Alexander Ivanov.
