On November 7, 2022, a meeting organized by the Minister of Internal Affairs regarding “the draft decision of the Government on the declassification of part of the secret information contained in the documents of the National Archive Fund, located in the warehouses of the National Archive Fund”, in which historians of several research institutes and archivists were invited to participate. Regarding this meeting and the GD project, we make the following clarifications.

None of the invitees, except for those who worked on this project – officials of the MAI and historians close to the ministry’s vision – had not received or read the above-mentioned project before this meeting. The text in question was given to us at the request of those present only at the end of the meeting, although it was requested from the beginning of the meeting. Representatives of the Ministry of Interior stated that this text will lead to the declassification of documents, which is actually very far from the truth. We would like to remind you that from May 26, 2022, under the pretext of protecting so-called “secret information” and in accordance with some recommendations of the Main Department of Internal Security of the Ministry of Interior, access to documents at the disposal of the National Security Agency was strictly limited. , as seen in the responses provided by ANR during this period. For six months, the commission of an unknown composition worked on this project of the DG in a non-transparent manner, although the issues under discussion essentially concern access to information in a democratic society, which is guaranteed by the Constitution and other laws regulating this field. The results of the considered commission’s work are disappointing.

The text of the GD proposal, which is already under government approval and has not been the subject of previous consultations, only confirms and continues the record set by the communist regime. The vast majority of indicators of “secret”, “top secret” or “top secret of special importance” were improperly applied by the structures of the totalitarian state for reasons related, first of all, to limiting the access of Romanian citizens to important information. . The decision that the community of historians and archivists expects from the new Government Decree was to cancel any records imposed by the dictatorial regimes that succeeded each other in Romania until 1989, as well as to include in the provisions of this Government Decree the documents still kept by the creators and by owners who also bear the greatest risk of destruction. Such a decision is in line with the laws and values ​​on which Romania claims to be based, and concerns not only historians and archivists. In fact, it is about the fundamental right of access to public information and the need to preserve the national documentary heritage.

In essence, the project proposed by the Ministry of the Interior does not solve the problem of access to secret documents that are at the disposal of the ANR, violating the rights enshrined in the Romanian Constitution and international treaties ratified by the Romanian state, such as the right to education and knowledge, the right to information , the freedom to seek, receive or communicate and disseminate information or ideas by any means, without interference by public authorities and regardless of national borders.

In the text of the PD project, it is proposed to declassify documents with the labels “official secret” and “secret”, which have already expired, and the secrecy label introduced by the communist regime for documents with the label “top secret” issued from 1972 to 1989. In the case with the latter category, only those documents that have been previously examined will be declassified, the rest of the documents will be declassified after a 50-year period from their creation. This last provision excludes from the study all documents marked “top secret” that were issued by the communist regime between 1972 and 1989, today in the National Archives of Romania, and which were not examined in the ANR office. At the same time, the project does not provide for the declassification of documents marked “Top Secret of Special Importance”, as well as documents created before 1989, which still have their creators and owners.

Thus, it is unacceptable that in 2022 the documents created by the communist regime are still classified as “state secrets”, although in 2002 Law on matters of protection of secret information which prohibits the classification as a “state secret” of information regarding violations of fundamental rights or concealment of violations of the law, administrative errors, restrictions on access to classified information, categories into which most documents created by the communist regime fall.

From our point of view, the only acceptable solution is the mass declassification of all documents created before 1989 by the totalitarian Antonian and communist regimes, regardless of whether they are in archives or still held by their creators and owners. . Any other regulation is a simple totalitarian reflex that brings Romania closer to dictatorial regimes. The archives are not a place where documents issued by the state are hidden, as the leaders of the various totalitarian regimes that succeeded each other in Romania believed. They are a state institution where documentary evidence of the past is kept and put into circulation to find out the truth and inform Romanian citizens.

We demand that the Ministry of Internal Affairs radically revise the project of the State Department in terms of the block declassification of all documents created before 1989, regardless of the classification, content, author and year of their issuance and place of storage. This provision should be applied to all documents that are at the disposal of the NRA, including those that will be deposited with the NRA.

At the same time, we explain that yesterday, November 7, 2022, we submitted a petition to the registry of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in which we indicated the source of this crisis that the National Archives of Romania is experiencing, namely the violation of its autonomy by the General Directorate of Internal Security and other internal structures of the MAI, and we demanded the creation of a new legal framework for the functioning of the National Archives of Romania

See the signatories of this viewpoint and the text of the government decision at Contributors.ro