On November 24, the NGO “Globe International” held a public discussion on draft Law on State Secrecy. Round 30 people, including the representatives from Border Protection Authority, General Customs Authority, General Intelligence Authority, General Police Authority, several lawyers and civil society representatives, participated in the discussion on the draft law prepared by two Project Groups.
Under the project on "State Secrecy and Freedom of Information" being run by Globe International with the financial assistance of the US Embassy, two Project Groups comprising researchers and lawyers have formulated a concept for the draft Law on State Secrecy upon conduction of a comparative and documentary study. The draft Law will be finalized by December 2006.
The draft Law’s concept featured a full analysis of the deficiencies of the present state secrecy legislation in comparison with the similar laws of other countries in transition.
The project teams’ members concluded that national security, privacy and other interests are recognized under international law as legitimate grounds for imposing restrictions on the free flow of information.
The results of the study found the right of ordinary citizens in Mongolia to access information to be infringed upon. The study also revealed that some of the information of public concern and public interest is unnecessarily protected by the state secrecy legislation. Furthermore, the right to information is enjoyed by all citizens on an equal basis.
Finally, the results of the case study exposed the fact that the state secrecy legislation should be immediately amended as it does not meet the requirements of modern development and contradicts the nature and principles of democracy and human rights.
Globe’s head Ms. Kh. Naranjargal said: “We concluded that the scope of the law shouldn’t be broad to be able to hide important issues from the public eye such as corruption cases, at the same time it should be poised to better protect national security.”
The participants’ views on the draft law are as follows:
Mr. Kh. Temuujin, Open Academy:
- What is important is what should be implied under the term “national security” and what should be open to the public in a democratic state;
- Under the draft law, the General Intelligence Author has the full right to conduct various examinations. Therefore, there is a danger that human rights could be violated in the course of such examinations;
- It is important that the views of General Intelligence Authority, armed forces and civil society be incorporated into the draft law.
Ms. D. Solongo, Mongolian National University, Legal University:
- Under the draft law, the person who has accidentally found information regarding state secrets is required to take it to the General Intelligence Authority, while the authority in charge is obliged to impose a fine if such information has not been taken to the General Intelligence Authority.
- Few citizens take time to get familiar with newly adopted laws. Therefore, a person who has found information regarding state secrets might not realize the information he or she found has actually to do with state secrets. In addition, the people living in rural areas situated thousand of kilometers from the capital city will find it difficult to bring such information to the capital-based General Intelligence Authority.
- Under the draft law, those who have used a state secret for private purposes are viable for a 50,000-tugrik fine. This is too small a fine for someone who has violated the law for a bigger sum of money bigger than 50 thousand Tugriks. These 3 points shout be factored in by the project teams.
Source: Globe International NGO