The Health and Social Care Committee in Östhammar Municipality is criticised for, among other things, processing a request for the disclosure of official documents in contravention of the provisions of the Freedom of the Press Act on the right to anonymity and the ban on inquiries

Summary of the decision: A woman formerly employed in a unit of Östhammar Municipality requested copies of the CVs of all social workers employed within the unit. In the course of processing the matter, her request was forwarded to the officials assumed to be in charge of the requested documents. Moreover, the social workers in question were informed of their former colleague’s request, which was also discussed at several meetings within the unit. When the woman subsequently had contact with some of her former colleagues in a private group chat, they asked why she had requested copies of the documents.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman notes that the committee has not given any substantive reason as to why the information that their former colleague had requested documents was passed on to employees within the unit and discussed at meetings. The Parliamentary Ombudsman therefore considers this action to be incompatible with the right to anonymity prescribed in the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act (SFS 1949:105) and criticises the committee accordingly.

In their decision, the Parliamentary Ombudsman also states that it is immaterial that questions about the disclosure were raised in a private group chat, as the employees had been given the information in their official capacity. The officials must be considered to have acted as representatives of the authority, even if this was not conscious and deliberate on their part. The Parliamentary Ombudsman holds that it would be unreasonable if the constitutional protection against an authority making inquiries into a person’s identity could be circumvented by the expedient of officials using private contact channels to ask prohibited questions, or that this could be perceived to be the case. This action therefore showed disregard for the ban on inquires in the Freedom of the Press Act and the committee is criticised for this.

The decision also contains a statement on the right to receive a rejection decision in writing when a request for access to official documents cannot be accommodated in whole or in part.