Yuliya Hryha, a civic monitor of the access to public information of the Ombudsman Plus platform in Vinnytsia, reported on this situation.

"Since December 2015, we have conducted the public monitoring of the implementation of the Law on Access to Public Information and attempted to participate in the Vinnitsa City Council's session. We have failed to attend the session and have been stopped at the checkpoint,'' the activist said. She added that now the key goal was to achieve a transparent process of public session attendance.

Ms. Hryha noted that – besides the issue regarding session attendance – there were a lot of shortcomings in the functioning of the official Vinnytsia City Council's website. Several problems were found during the Ombudsman Plus platform's monitoring of the access to public information.

"The publication of the City Council's draft decisions is one of the issues; they are not available on the Council's website. Also, agendas of Council's sessions could not be found. Agendas are listed in the City Mayor's regulation as an annex, but in fact the annex does not exist. During the monitoring, a problem with numbering draft decisions was noticed - it is impossible to find any City Council's document on the website without the exact name or other details,'' the activist underlined.

"However, there are also positive achievements thanks to the activity of our Ombudsman Plus platform. Since 26 February, online broadcasting of the City Council's sessions is available," stated Yuliya Hryha. She also added that Vinnytsia City Council processes requests for information in a timely and accurate manner.

Vinnytsia is just one of the oblasts where the Ombudsman Plus platform's activists monitor the access to public information. This initiative resulted in 4 waves of monitoring missions in 19 oblasts of Ukraine.

Monitoring results and recommendations for public authorities will be the basis for the Ombudsperson's special report to the Parliament of Ukraine.

The Ombudsman Plus platform is implemented by the Media Law Institute with the support of UNDP's Strengthening Capacities of the Ombudsperson's Office Project.