Prime Minister Andrus Ansip replied to the interpellation (No. 187) concerning the documents related to the administrative reform, submitted on 15 December by Members of the Riigikogu Tõnis Lukas and Mart Laar. The interpellators referred to the judgment No. 3-505/2005 of 27 September 2005 of Tallinn Administrative Court, which allegedly established that Minister of Regional Affairs Jaan Õunapuu had unlawfully tried to classify documents related to the possible merging of the Kabala Rural Municipality, located in Järvamaa, with other local governments.

In his reply to the interpellation Prime Minister said that Jaan Õunapuu had explained the issue to him and that he had read the relevant documents. According to Minister Õunapuu the working groups who were looking for solutions to the problems were of advisory nature and protocols of the working groups were not subject to registration in the document register of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The reason why the above protocol was declared to be for internal use, was, according to the Minister, to avoid distortion or out-of-context misinterpretation of statements made by members of the working group.

According to Mr. Ansip, there is no reason to claim that Minister Õunapuu had intentionally tried to classify documents in an unlawful manner. Prime Minister drew attention to the fact that the proposal of the working group to the Minister of Regional Affairs was that a new Türi Rural Municipality would consist of four rural municipalities. In fact we all know that one of them is a town and exactly such was the proposal (the town of Türi, Türi, Õisu and Kabala Rural Municipalities) to the Government, made by the Minister of Regional Affairs.

According to Prime Minister no special attention should be attached to the minutes of a meeting of a working group. In the opinion of Mr. Ansip, the resolutions of concrete local government councils are much more important to this case than the results of expert committees’ deliberations, especially since the majority of experts are employees of the same Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Prime Minister said: “I am an advocate of disclosure, I think that all the facts leading up to a decision, must also be known to the public and therefore I cannot approve such attempts of secrecy from a purely ideological point of view.”

Prime Minister also replied to the interpellation (No. 185) concerning human trafficking, submitted on 14 December by Members of the Riigikogu Kadi Pärnits and Eiki Nestor.

Chancellor of Justice Allar Jõks replied to the interpellation (No. 188) concerning the Resolution of the Board of the Riigikogu to reject the candidates to the office of Administrative Director of the Chancellery of the Riigikogu, submitted on 12 January by Members of the Riigikogu Andres Herkel, Helir-Valdor Seeder, Mart Laar, Tõnis Lukas and Trivimi Velliste.

The Riigikogu Press Service