frsrdg · H304JO1 · 2015-11-06 00:00:00 — is criticised for: 1) a decision to discharge an administrator not being justified in the prescribed by law; and 2) that an order given to the administrator was incomprehensible. Criticism of in the for insufficient justification of a decision to discharge an administrator (4248- 2014) decided to discharge a person from his assign- ment as administrator. The decision was not justified in the described in Section 20 of the Administrative Procedure Act (1986:223) and the Com- mittee is criticised for this. T H E S W E D I S H P A R L I A M E N T A R Y O M B U D S M E N B I L A G A 1 0 2 015 /1 6:JO1 Public access to documents and secrecy as well as freedom of expression and of the press Social services, health and services criticism of certain healthcare providers in the region and into a journal agreement with a company despite this being in contravention of the regulations (3032-2011) Healthcare providers in the region and have entered into an agreement with a company regarding journal for patients. According to the agreement, the company acts as a per- sonal information assistant in relation to the healthcare provider (who is the controller). The agreement means that the healthcare provider allows secretaries employed by the company to remotely listen to recorded dictation and enter the information into the patient’s journal. The processing is fully elec- tronic and information is never stored outside of the /region’s IT systems. According to Chapter 25, Section 1 of the Public Access and Se- crecy Act (2009:400), OSL, a strict secrecy applies to protect information about patients in the public health and care system. The rules that govern the processing of personal information in the health and care system are not of direct importance for how the matter of secrecy shall be examined. The question of whether a healthcare provider can disclose confidential information to a personal information assistant or to persons employed by the assistant shall be tried in the usual way in accordance with OSL. The Parliamentary Ombuds- man finds that the secretaries at the company are not covered by the OSL-related oath of secrecy that applies to the healthcare provider’s own staff. The question of whether the information in the patients’ journals can be made available to the secretaries is therefore mainly dependent on whether a disclosure can take place without injury to those protected by the secrecy. The secretaries entered into an agreement which includes an oath of secrecy in relation to their employer (i.e. the company). Furthermore, the regulations that govern the processing of personal information entail a form of secrecy for those processing the information. According to the Parliamentary Ombudsman, these “alternative” oaths of secrecy are not sufficient for the disclosure to be made without injury to those protected by the secrecy. When making this as- sessment, based on the fact that the information being processed in accordance with the agreements is highly sensitive, it has been taken into consideration that the healthcare provider’s own staff can be sentenced for breaching the secrecy if confidential information is incorrectly disclosed, while this is not the case for secretaries employed by the company. A disclosure is also not sup- ported by the secrecy-breaking provisions found in Chapter 10 of OSL or in laws or ordinances which OSL refers to. The Parliamentary Ombudsman’s con- clusion is that the healthcare providers do not have legal support for the way in which they have disclosed confidential patient information for journal by the company’s secretaries. The Parliamentary Ombudsman finds it remarkable that the healthcare providers have not shown greater consideration to the secrecy-related aspects when entering into the agreements. 2 015 /1 6:JO1 B I L A G A 10 T H E S W E D I S H P A R L I A M E N T A R Y O M B U D S M E N healthcare providers receive grave criticism for entering into agreements en- tailing that the /region disclose patient information for journal by a company’s employees despite this not being compatible with the regulations concerning secrecy. criticism of the Child and Youth Psychiatric Department, BUP, in for the handling of a request for disclosure of a patient journal The parents of a girl who was being treated in accordance with the Care of , LVU, requested a copy of the daughter’s journal from BUP agreed with the social services that the journal should be given to the social services for assessment of which information could be given to the It is the government agency which holds a public document that should examine a request for a copy of the document. BUP receives grave criticism for not evaluating the parents’ request and instead giving the journal documents to another government agency for assessment. Criticism of a doctor at Psykiatri , , for disclosing a parent’s journal to a social welfare board to be used in the daughter’s child care investigation (6772-2012) There is in principle a prevailing secrecy between the healthcare services and However, in ongoing child care investigations, the Social Wel- fare Board is entitled to information from the healthcare services that may be of importance to the Board’s investigation. The government agency that dis- closes information shall make an assessment of the scope of its liability to dis- close this information. A doctor at Psykiatri disclosed a parent’s full patient journal to the social services. Even if the doctor perceived the Social ’s request to be a request for the full journal, he was obligated to assess what information could be disclosed. On disclosure, he stated a “condi- tion” that the information could only be used in an investigation that concerned a child’s welfare. However, such a condition cannot be established in relation to another government agency. The Parliamentary Ombudsman criticises the doctor for his handling of the case. Criticism of the social welfare service in Municipality for the management of a request for anonymity in a report of concerns sent to the social services (4121-2013) The authors of a letter sent to the social services about the home circumstances of two children, who had signed the letter with their names, stated in the letter that they wished to be anonymous. The social welfare service processed the letter as a report of concerns about children. The letter was provided to the children’s guardian as part of the process of dealing with the report. the authors had provided their names, they had revealed their own identities and could not thus have any control over the question of anonymity. thority was obliged to conduct a confidentiality investigation before releasing The JO have no evidence on which to base any criticism with respect to the issue of the deliberations the social welfare service made in this respect T H E S W E D I S H P A R L I A M E N T A R Y O M B U D S M E N B I L A G A 1 0 2 015 /1 6:JO1 prior to the letter being released. According to the JO, however, the authorities’ general service obligation pursuant to Section 4 of the Administrative Proce- dure Act means that the social welfare service should have informed the authors of the letter that they could not guarantee their anonymity, but would instead investigate and make a decision on this matter. The social welfare service can- not evade criticism of its failure to inform the authors of the report about this. Criticism of a unit manager from the home-help service in Municipality for having expressed themselves in a way that was not consistent with the so-called ban on reprisals in the Freedom of the Press Act An employee from the home-help service turned to the media to criticise their current working conditions. This person was called to a meeting at which a unit manager, among others, was present. In their decision, the JO establish that, in conjunction with the meeting, the unit manager expressed their clear dissatis- faction with the employee having turned to the media. According to the JO, the unit manager’s actions have come into conflict with the so-called ban on re- prisals, and she is criticised for this. Restriction on the freedom of expression of a professor at called into question (4420-2013) In his free time, a professor at has made disparaging remarks about a named person via the microblog Twitter. As a result of this, he was called to a meeting with the of the university’s , among others. Before the meeting took place, the took part in an interview with a newspaper during which he made certain statements. In his decision the JO expresses his understanding that both the professor and others who read the article could perceive these statements as an indication that representatives of the university were regarded themselves as having a right to have opinions on how a colleague chooses to utilise their freedom of expression. In addition, these statements can be perceived as indicating that the university’s represent- atives believed themselves to have the opportunity to limit this right. The JO conclude that there is a clear risk that other university employees may have perceived the statements in the press as indicating that their freedom of expres- sion is more limited than that of other citizens in general. According to the JO, this is serious and risks leading to a situation in which employees dare not ex- press their opinions. For this reason, the JO underline the importance of repre- sentatives of authorities not expressing themselves in a way that may be per- ceived as indicating the authority wants to limit its employees’ freedom of ex- pression. 2 015 /1 6:JO1 B I L A G A 10 T H E S W E D I S H P A R L I A M E N T A R Y O M B U D S M E N Criticism of for a decision not to process requests for the release of documents by a certain person, etc. (180-2014) a period of a couple of years the Municipality of received a very large number of letters and inquiries as well as requests for the release of doc- uments from one and the same person, L.P. Finally the Municipality considered that the situation was unsustainable since the handling of what was received was very time-consuming, affected the Municipality’s possibility of working efficiently and in a legally secure way and was experienced as a work environ- ment problem. After a period the Municipality found that the most appropriate response was to only reply to enquiries from L.P. orally, either by phone or at scheduled meetings. In addition, the Municipality steered emails from L.P. to the head of the Municipality’s contact centre for reply and processing. Against the background of the situation described there is no reason to criticise the Mu- nicipality’s actions in this part of the matter. In January 2014 the Municipality took a decision in principle that coming applications for the release of docu- ments by L.P. would not be accommodated with or examined. This decision, which means that the procedural rules of the Freedom of the Press Act and the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act will not be applied to requests from L.P., is manifestly contrary to the law and means that the Municipality has overridden clear legal regulation in ordinary law and in fundamental law. As a result the decision is also contrary to the requirement in the Instrument of Government that an authority shall observe objectivity and impartiality and have regard to the equality of all before the law. With the support of this deci- sion in principle, which the administrative court of appeal has assessed not to be appealable, the Municipality has failed to examine applications for the re- lease of documents from L.P., which has meant that she has been refused for- mal decisions rejecting her requests and has therefore not been able to have her requests examined by a court. is criticised for this decision which is contrary to the law and for the fact that L.P.’s requests for access to official documents have not been examined thereafter. This deci- sion also contains general pronouncements about the service obligation of au- thorities and the handling of both very extensive and very frequent requests for the release of documents. Criticism of the Government Offices, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which in several cases has not satisfied the requirements that public documents are to be speedily disclosed (6276-2012) The Parliamentary Ombudsman has investigated five separate reports made against the regarding the Ministry’s handling of applications for access to public documents. The Ministry is criticised in all five cases for unacceptably long processing times. The investigation of the five complaints has led to a more detailed examination of the Ministry’s processing procedures in respect of applications for access to public documents; this in- cluded the conducting of an inspection. This examination showed that long processing times generally occur at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. T H E S W E D I S H P A R L I A M E N T A R Y O M B U D S M E N B I L A G A 1 0 2 015 /1 6:JO1 primarily due to the fact that the personnel resources for the work with disclo- sure of public documents were insufficient, which means that backlogs oc- curred. The Ministry has now allocated additional resources that the official in charge considers sufficient. In the decision, the Parliamentary Ombudsman notes that the fact that applications for access to public documents are not ac- tively processed is incompatible with the provisions of the Freedom of Press Act, and that there is take the regular backlog of applications as a very serious matter. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs is criticised for allowing this situation to arise. The decision also addresses the boundary between measures that an authority is obligated to take according in line with the provisions of the Free- dom of Press Act and the authority’s service measures. Furthermore, issues concerning the processing of applications that apply to an extensive amount of material are addressed. Criticism of the for the handling of a request for disclosure of public documents (3442-2013) During a preliminary investigation regarding a traffic accident near in County, a reporter asked for information from the ’s speed cameras. did not provide the information and instead contacted the . This led to the requesting access to the information for their preliminary investigation, which in turn meant that the information became subject to what is known as preliminary investigation secrecy. then rejected the reporter’s request for the information. is crit- icised for contacting the instead of swiftly giving the information to the reporter.