Access to records in Latvia: legal and practical issues

Gatis KarlsonsThe National Archives of Latvia

EBNA/ EAG, Vilnius, October 8-9, 2013

Access to records: history

• 1991 Law «On Archives»• 1994 Law Regarding Preservation and Use of

Documents of the Former KGB• 1996 Law «On State Secrets»• 1998 Freedom of Information Law• 2000 Personal Data Protection Law• 2011 Archives Law

Law «On Archives», Article 15: Use of documents of the National Archival Fond of Latvia

• Citizens of Latvia and of other states; institutions, enterprises and organizations are entitled to use documents of the National Archival Fonds of Latvia as authorized.

• All materials of the archives may be used in the reading rooms free of charge, except for additional services provided.

• Documents in the possession of social, cooperative and religious organizations and other legal entities may be used with their consent only.

• Citizens may request information from state archives, state institutions, enterprises, organizations and other legal entities regarding themselves, their dependents and deceased relatives.

• State institutions, enterprises, organizations, also social, cooperative and religious organizations and other legal entities shall provide information based on the documents originated in the course of the operations of these institutions. Documents containing secret information may be used in the procedure provided by laws of the Republic of Latvia.

New Archives Law (Section 13 )

(2) Accessibility shall be restricted for:1) records which contain the State secret in accordance with the regulatory

enactments;3) public records which have been created or received by the State security

institutions ...or are stored in the National Archives of Latvia which contain the information related to national security, protection or foreign affairs the disclosure of which may cause harm to the interests of the State or public. The head of the relevant institution may determine a general information accessibility restriction period of 30 years for those records;

4) records which contain sensitive personal data or information regarding the private life of a person ... if the use of personal data or information contained therein can significantly touch the private life of a person... the record accessibility shall be restricted for 30 years from the death of the person to which the record applies. If the date of a person’s death is not possible to determine, the record accessibility shall be restricted for 110 years after the birth of the person to which the record applies. If it is not possible to determine the date of a person's death and birth, the record accessibility shall be restricted for 75 years after creation of the record;

(3) Records, for which restrictions for accessibility have been determined, are allowed to be used:

1) upon the request of the pre-trial investigating institution, the prosecutor’s office, the court or other public persons in cases specified by the Law;

2) upon request of a scientist [PhD] for performance of scientific activity [with exceptions];

+Amendments: upon requests of the students, library, museum and research

personnel if they have authorization from their superiors.upon request of a natural person if he/she has a recommendation

from the competent scientific institution, library or accredited museum.

(5) The Director of the National Archives of Latvia or his or her authorised person, the head of the institution or the founder of the accredited private archives may determine the restrictions for use of an archival record in order to ensure preservation of the original of the record, which is in bad physical condition, by adopting a written decision thereon.

Problems and practical issuesLatvian FOI Law (Section 5, part 4) states that : • the author of information ... shall determine restricted

access information status for a time period, which is not longer than one year...

• the status of restricted access may be prolonged even multiple times for another one year periods

The Archives law (Section 13, part 2) states that: • if the information is being stored in the institution’s

archive and • if it concerns national security it is possible to apply 30 years closure period to this

information

Problems and practical issues• The closure periods of 30, 110 or 75 years is subject to dispute. • In Estonia closure periods have been banished since 2011 and the

documents that contain personal data are accessible for scientific activities to everyone on the same conditions after the death of the data subject.

• In Lithuania:-The periods of restricted access for documents that contain personal

data are slightly shorter – 30, 100 and 70 years respectively.-former Soviet security service documents that contain personal data

are freely accessible. The documents may be granted restricted access only if such is the wish of the person who has suffered from the activities of the former Soviet security service.

Problems and practical issues

• In Latvia and some other countries researchers are obliged to pay for copying documents with their own means. It applies also to photographing without using the flash.

• Does it cause violation of the rights to information?

THANK YOU!