Overview of some aspects of protection of the right to information

The right to information in the broadest sense is a component of the constitutional and legal status of a person in the country, and the existence of an effective mechanism for realizing this right, including its protection, demonstrates the state of reality of the proclaimed principles of the rule of law. The article is an attempt to provide a broad overview of the possibilities of protecting the rights of individuals and legal entities to information in Ukraine. The authors tried not to limit themselves to analyzing the mechanisms of a specific branch of law, but made an attempt to outline possible violations of the right to information and analyze the legal means of stopping such violations and preventing negative manifestations in the future. The article analyzes both jurisdictional and non-jurisdictional ways of protecting the right to information, which have their own specific features of manifestation and application within different branches of law. The author considers the ways of protecting the right to information through the mechanisms of civil, administrative and economic branches of law, and makes a certain systematization of the types of violations of the right to information depending on the subject of violation (private or public), on the consequences, on the nature and manifestation of violations. The authors analyzes the positions of national courts and the European Court of Human Rights regarding the existence of legislative restrictions on judges in choosing the ways to protect the applicants’ right to information. The authors also compare the approaches of the European and Ukrainian legislators to the interpretation of the concept of “non-jurisdictional remedies” on the example of legal acts regulating the procedure for exercising information rights, and provide examples of relevant preventive measures (technical and organizational). The authors analyzes the capabilities of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights in the mechanism of protection of the right to information and provides examples of the use of his/her powers in response to appeals on violation of the right to information. Gaps in information legislation are identified and ways to eliminate them are suggested.