Anušauskas renews bid to open KGB archives

Parliamentary opposition member Arvydas Anušauskas has registered revised amendments to the Law on Documents and Archives that would establish partial access to KGB archives, LRT reported.

The member of the Homeland Union Lithuanian Christian Democrats faction revised the proposal in response to comments from the parliament’s Legal Department. He is seeking a clear rule that if only part of a document must remain protected, only that part should be restricted while the rest remains accessible.

“The aim of the bill is to establish a clear principle of partial access to documents: when they contain information whose use is legally restricted, only the use of that information should be limited, while the remaining part of the document should be accessible unless its use is restricted by other laws,” Anušauskas said in the explanatory note.

The principle would apply to information about people who admitted to secretly cooperating with Soviet special services and were entered in the register of people who had confessed, as well as information about people who suffered from those services and had requested that access to information about them be restricted until their deaths.

Under the revised proposal, if a document in the special section of the National Document Fund contains information about people who admitted to secretly cooperating with Soviet special services, only the use of that information would be restricted, rather than access to the entire document.

If parliament approves the amendments, the document holder would have to provide access to the rest of the document by covering, removing or otherwise making inaccessible only the data or information whose use is legally restricted. The same rule would apply to information about people who suffered from Soviet special services and requested that access to information about them be restricted until their deaths.

“If one former secret KGB collaborator’s name needs to be protected, that specific piece of data should be protected, rather than closing the entire file. A historical document must not become inaccessible simply because it contains one line protected by law. Personal data protection must not turn into the classification of an entire history,” Anušauskas said.

He said the special section of the National Document Fund contains a significant part of Lithuania’s documentary heritage from the 20th century, including documents from the KGB, other Soviet security and intelligence institutions, and other occupying institutions. He said access to the documents was important for historians, researchers, journalists and the public investigating repression, persecution, resistance and cooperation with occupation structures.

The amendments would require the government to establish procedures for providing KGB-related documents and copies, identifying restricted information, anonymising it, covering it or otherwise separating it from the publicly accessible part of a document.

The proposed regulation would take effect on January 1, 2027. If the law is adopted, document holders would have 12 months to review previously imposed restrictions on access to documents in the special section of the National Document Fund and ensure that they are accessible.

Several politician-initiated proposals on publicising former KGB collaborators are currently being considered in parliament, but none has reached the adoption stage. In December last year, parliament approved for consideration amendments prepared by Remigijus Žemaitaitis, leader of the Dawn of Nemunas party, which proposed declassifying former KGB collaborators from 2028. However, the parliament’s National Security and Defence Committee rejected the amendments.

Žemaitaitis has proposed abolishing a law adopted in 1999 that regulates the registration, confession, listing and protection of former KGB collaborators who have confessed. To allow time to prepare for implementation, he proposed postponing the law’s entry into force until 2028.