Legislation in question: Articles 21 and 21¹ of the Russian Federation Law “On State Secrecy”.

Legal issue: The constitutionality of denial of having access to the file of the examination conducted with regard to the death of a person for his close relative and/or latter’s advocate on the basis of there being a data related to special investigative techniques which constitute a State secret.

Ratio decidendi:  The rules in question do not contradict the Constitution, because they should not be interpreted as permitting such denial. The information concerning the violations of rights and freedoms of man and the citizen, and also on the violations of legality by bodies of State power and their officials must not be classified as State secrecy. In the case at hand such secrecy would testify to the arbitrariness of the conclusions of the respective official about the death, the circumstances of which may bear traces of a crime, and would have created obstacles for interested persons in challenging them. The courts also should not be deprived of the possibility to ascertain whether the classification of certain data as State secret was justified.