Severe criticism of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service for forcing a person placed on probation to provide urine samples despite the fact that there were no legal grounds for doing so

Summary of the decision: A person was placed on probation on condition that they provide samples to prove that they were drug-free when requested to do so by the probation service. While the verdict did not specify how long this condition was to apply, the law states that such conditions may only be imposed for a maximum of one year at a time. After one year had passed, the probation service did not notice that the period of validity of the condition had expired and continued to request urine samples from the convicted person.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman states that, regardless of the cause or explanation, it is completely unacceptable that on several occasions the probation service forced the individual to provide a urine sample without any legal grounds for doing so. For this, the Swedish Prison and Probation Service is severely criticised.

This is the third case to come before the Parliamentary Ombudsman in a relatively short period of time in which significant shortcomings have emerged regarding probation conditions. This has been a matter of inadequate operational support and inadequate checks, as well as errors on the part of individual officials. In all these cases, the individual has suffered by being subjected to interventions without legal grounds. As the Parliamentary Ombudsman understands it, this is not a matter of individual mistakes at certain probation offices, but rather a problem of a more systematic nature. This is a mater of considerable concern to the Parliamentary Ombudsman and she considers it essential that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service investigates without delay which measures need to be taken to address this, and then prioritises the implementation of these measures.