TO: Prof. Ognian Gerdzhikov
Chairman of the National Assembly of Republic of Bulgaria
Mr. Symeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
Prime minister of Republic of Bulgaria
Mass media
OPEN LETTER
of the Institute for Study of Communist Crimes in Bulgaria
Mr. Chairman,
Ladies and Gentlemen
The draft for alteration and complement of the Law
for protection of the classified information (LPCI), adopted on
6. 1. 2005 by the Council of Ministers, gives the possibility of
destruction of secret materials with expired term of protection
in different departments without any control on the part of the
State Commission of Information Security. This creates preconditions
for destruction of archivalia with exceptional historical and reference
value which are not yet studied at all.
Almost two years the declassified decrees of the law are not enforced
by number of state institutions among which Ministry of Interior,
Ministry of Defence and National Intelligence Service which do not
deliver materials with expired term of protection in the States
Archives. It leads to flagrant break of the right for information
access proclaimed by the Constitution.
In defence of public interest we appeal:
- During the discussions on the
bill in the National Assembly to adopt a text interdicting expressly
the destruction of archivalia dated before April 1990.
- To adopt an amendment excluding the application
of the Law for personal data to this archivalia.
- In the departmental commissions for examination
of archival patrimony to include compulsory experts from the Central
Archives Administration at the Council of Ministers.
- To adopt a procedure by which the heads of administrative
units to be under imperative obligation to announce in a due public
way the opening of the all kind of secret archivalia.
- To adopt a decree allowing the citizens to appeal
through the court the decisions of the departmental commissions
for destruction of secret materials with expired term of protection.
We appeal to the Council of Ministers and the State
Commission of Information Security to take immediately the indispensable
resolutions for implementation of LPCI in the part of delivering
of materials with expired term of protection in the State Archives.
We appeal to Prime minister Mr. Symeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha with an
exhortation to take measures to carry into practice the political
will declared by him in October 1994 to deliver the archivalia in
the State Archives in order to become openly accessible and to eliminate
the actual hindrances for their study by historians and citizens.
Kalin Manolov
President
Institute for Study of Communist Crimes in Bulgaria
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