Statement concerning a public authority that directed an employee who requested access to official documents to retrieve the documents themselves from the municipality’s system

Summary of the decision: A municipality received a request for access to official documents from a person who was employed by the municipality. The employee was directed to retrieve the documents themselves from the municipality’s system.

The investigation in the case in question does not support the contention that the requested documents were actually official documents. The Parliamentary Ombudsman therefore makes no assessment of whether the municipality’s processing was consistent with the Freedom of the Press Act (SFS 1949:105). Instead, the Parliamentary Ombudsman makes a general statement that, when an employee of a public authority requests access to official documents, the authority shall not direct the employee to retrieve the documents themselves from the authority’s system.