Information sphere issues

Parliamentarians Igor Buga and Ruslan Gareev proposed to amend the Electoral Code. They relate to the use of images of individuals in the campaign materials. According to the authors, there is a legal gap in the electoral legislation: on the one hand, it is necessary to protect the image of a citizen from unauthorized use for campaign purposes, and on the other hand to create equal conditions for the realization of the right of citizens, candidates and electoral associations to conduct election campaigning.

The authors of the law-in-draft registered cases where the image of an individual may or may not be used in campaign materials. During the conduct of elections, referendum, the image of an individual cannot be used without his consent, with the exception of images obtained during mass public events. The law-in-draft was supported by the deputies in the first reading.

The Supreme Council in the second reading mode considered a number of legislations, developed by deputies of the committee on public associations, sports, information and youth policy. Supplements to the law “On Information, Information Technologies and Protection of Information” are aimed at ensuring the state’s information security. The amendments concern restrictions on access to information resources (including on the Internet), containing calls for riots, extremist activities, participation in mass events held in violation of the procedure established by law.

The amendments to the Law “On Mass Media” concern the procedure for registering mass media. In particular, the authors proposed to supplement it with a new norm, according to which the registering body is provided with functions of keeping a register of registered media and re-registering the media is replaced by a procedure for making changes to the registry entry. The law-in-draft defines the list of persons who cannot act as founders of the mass media: these are citizens who have a conviction that has not been canceled or outstanding for committing crimes using mass media and other information and telecommunication networks, as well as persons connected with extremist activities.

The submitted by the relevant committee legislations were adopted in the second reading. Work on it will continue in the third reading mode.