Humanities & Social Sciences 9 (2016 9) 2202-2222 ~ ~ ~ УДК 342.723 The Right of Access to Information on the Public Administration Activities in Russia and Germany: the Constitutional and Legislative Framework Elena V. Gritsenko*, Ekaterina G. Babelyuk and Maria I. Proskuryakova St. Petersburg State University 7-9 University Embankment, St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia Received 27.12.2015, received in revised form 18.02.2016, accepted 22.06.2016 The article deals with the constitutional and legislative grounds for the right of access to information in the sphere of public governance in Russia and Germany from a comparative perspective, its content and restrictions are subject to consideration. <...> The right of access to information in the public governance sphere is suggested having a dual nature – the right guaranteeing freedom for the individual (status negativus), and the right to participate in the state affairs governing (status activus). <...> A comparative analysis of the constitutional guarantees of the right of access to information indicates that under the Russian Constitution they are represented more widely in comparison with the German Fundamental Law guaranteeing everyone free information recipience only from sources accessible to public. <...> In this respect, access to information in the sphere of public governance regarding its intraadministrative official nature turned out to be outside the constitutional guarantees framework. <...> At the same time, legislative and enforcing interpretation of the right in question guarantees in Germany tends to their continuous broadening while in Russia both legislative and judicial practice neither complement nor expand constitutional guarantees but concretize them in terms of setting restrictions on the right of access to information. <...> Comparison of the right restrictions both in Russian and German legislation authenticates legal determinacy deficiency of the Russian legislative approach. <...> Moreover, Russian approach in relation to adoption and judicial interpretation of the restrictions of the right of access to information concerning public administration activities is notable for unilateralism which is expressed in the absolutization of the idea of the protection of any restricted access information. <...> All rights reserved * Corresponding author E-mail address: gricenko.e@jurfak.spb.ru – 2202 – Elena V. Gritsenko, Ekaterina G. Babelyuk. <...> Keywords: right of access to information on the public administration activities, the principle of openness and transparence (transparency) of the public authority, protection of restricted access information, a weighing interests‘ method. <...> However, it is inconceivable to achieve these goals without the necessary level of information transparency <...>