STATEMENT REGARDING FINLAND'S STATE DEMAND FOR LEGAL COSTS
Case:
L706/2022/1504
Statement:
The plaintiff fundamentally believes that, according to the court's announcement on Friday, April
12, 2024, the deadline for submitting a precise claim for legal costs expired on Monday, April 15,
2024, at 11:59 p.m., and any claims submitted after this time cannot be considered. The state does
not have the right to special treatment, especially considering that the other parties to the trial haveadhered to the court's deadline.
The State has declared the following for its claim for legal costs:
The Finnish state's claim for legal costs (€121,284.82) consists of the work done by the attorneys
and other lawyers of Merilampi Attorneys Ltd in the matter according to the fee breakdown
attached (total fees €113,960) and the costs incurred in handling the assignment (€7,324.82).
Attorney Teemu Taxell was the responsible partner for the assignment in 2022, and attorney Jussi
Ikonen from February 2023 onwards. Assistant lawyer, LL.M. Iiris Paavola, has been involved inhandling the case throughout. The costs incurred for the assignment consist of the fee of expert
Janne Salminen and the taxi expenses of the attorneys.
We accept the taxi expenses.
Use of multiple lawyers and officials
The State has stated in the preparatory session that it bills solely for the use of one assistant, just as
the plaintiff does.
However, the legal cost invoice bills for the use of two different lawyers, two other presumably
experts, and additionally for the use of officials from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health(STM).
The court must accept only the use of one legal assistant on the part of the state.
The amount of hours used is completely unreasonable

The State has stated in its invoice that it has used 382 hours for handling the case. This is entirely
unreasonable for the following reasons:a)

The state has stated as its position that the lawsuit would be completely baseless from theoutset. However, the state has used significantly more hours in handling the case than the plaintiff,
which is at least peculiar considering the state's view of the lawsuit's complete lack of merit. It isevident that the state has unnecessarily stretched the number of hours solely to cause inconvenienceto the plaintiff with its demands, which must be considered as harassment.
b)

The plaintiff's submitted claim for legal costs includes 216.85 hours, and it is entirely

exceptional that the defendant's hours are nearly double this amount. The plaintiff has also spenttime on handling the lawsuit against Fazer Ravintolat Oy. We believe that a reasonable amountfor the state would be about 70 percent of the hours used by the plaintiff. This amount would
be a realistic number of hours to be used for handling the lawsuit on behalf of the state. A moredetailed breakdown follows.
The amount billed by the state for hours is unjustified considering the following factors:a)

The state's representative in court has focused heavily on disparaging the opposing party by

expressing contemptuous and even demeaning views about the plaintiff and their attorney, as well
as about our legal expert Muukkonen and our medical expert Malhotra. This goes against theguidelines of the Finnish Bar Association on Good Advocacy:
Section 8.4: An attorney shall not make statements that are likely to bring a witness into contemptunless making such statements is necessary for handling the matter or otherwise safeguarding theclient's interests. The above applies also to experts and other witnesses. Section 9.1: An attorneymust show courtesy and respect to other representatives of their profession without endangering theclient's interests, and must not subject them to improper criticism.
Disputes related to attorneys' professional activities should primarily be resolved amicably.
b)

The state's representative in their opening statement focused on presenting the plaintiff's

public relations regarding the ongoing legal process. The representative also mentioned that they,along with their team, had collected a large number of the plaintiff's social media posts. Naturally,
this is not part of the legal process and demonstrates poor professionalism.
c)

During the legal process, the state's representative has shown poor expertise in, among otherthings, international human rights conventions and their history, as well as the roles of witnesses
and experts (for example, former Prime Minister Marin has been considered an expert witness).

For these reasons, we believe that the court can only accept the state's claim for legal costs for thesame amount as what the plaintiff and Fazer Ravintolat Oy have requested, i.e., €200 per hour(excluding VAT, which the state had not requested by the deadline).

Regarding Janne Salminen's expert opinion
We completely dispute the state's claim to replace Janne Salminen's expert opinion.
Firstly, we refer to our assessment made before the main hearing that, according to the principle ofjura novit curia, the court must, from the outset, be familiar with the law, and there have been nogrounds to call in a legal expert to present their views on the matter.
Secondly, we believe that Janne Salminen has merely relied on his previous statement to theConstitutional Law Committee in his expert opinion, so his hearing could have been entirely
replaced by documents.
Thirdly, we believe that when Janne Salminen was heard in court, he only read his written statement
previously submitted to the court, so his summons to the main hearing was unnecessary, and thestate should have known this.

Regarding Finland's state party's costs
We completely dispute Finland's state party's claim for costs solely on the basis that the plaintiff has
only had one billable attorney available, and because the state has claimed that our lawsuit wasentirely groundless. If the lawsuit had been entirely groundless, there would have been no need to
involve especially officials from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, not to mention two legalassistants.
Additionally, these are salaried officials of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, who have notbeen specifically hired to deal with the lawsuit against the state. The state cannot demand that theplaintiff pay the salaries of the officials of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.

Detailed handling

Although the state stated in the preparatory session that a bill would not be submitted for the use ofa second legal assistant, billing for Iiris Paavola's work began on May 8, 2023. The state has statedthat its assistant was Jussi Ikonen, not Iiris Paavola, who, according to the invoice, however, seems
to have done significant work on the matter. Fundamentally, the state does not have the right to bill
for the use of more than one assistant unless the billing was intended to intentionally harm theplaintiff by creating additional costs through excessive work.
Regarding the first billed hours of legal work by the state, 33.75 hours, we believe that either thestate has:•a) actually recognized the initial significance of the lawsuit through excessive work,or•b) created additional costs for the plaintiff intentionally through excessive work, which must

be considered harassment.
We accept a maximum of 15 hours from the state's claim for legal costs until March 14, 2023.
Due to the aforementioned reasons (fundamentally, the state could have used only one assistant in
the case under consideration), we do not accept the use of Iiris Paavola's work as a billing basis. ForIiris Paavola's work, the state has submitted a claim for 188.75 hours, which we demand to beremoved when assessing the claim for legal costs.
Furthermore, the state's representative has not taken into account meal breaks during the main
hearings, with a total duration of 3 hours, which we also do not accept in the claim for legal costs.
The use of Sylvia Laulaja's work for 2.5 hours to research case law related to COVID restrictions
was not related to the case under consideration, so we do not accept this portion in the claim forlegal costs.

The approved portion of the state's claim for legal costs
We approve, in terms of amount, but naturally not in terms of justification, the state's claim for legal
costs as follows:
From the original claim, 382 hours must be deducted:a)Iiris Paavola's work portion of 188.75 hoursb)

Sylvia Laulaja's work portion of 2.5 hoursc)from the claim for legal costs until March 14, 2023, a deduction of 18.75 hoursd)

deduction of 3 hours for meal breaks during the main hearings

Total deductions: 213 hours
The total approved hours are 169 hours.
Considering that, based on the aforementioned reasons, the hourly billing can be at most
€200, and the VAT portion cannot be accepted due to the claim being late, we approve theamount of legal costs to be €33,800.

Regarding the attorney's claim for legal costs
We completely dispute Finland's state's demand that the plaintiff's attorney be ordered to pay aportion of the state's legal costs.
The guidelines of the Finnish Bar Association on Good Advocacy define the following aspects
related to the state's demand:
Section 5.8 defines the obligation to withdraw from a task. The obligation arises if, after accepting
the task, a circumstance arises that makes the attorney ineligible or has become ineligible. The
attorney is obliged to withdraw from the task if 1. a legal obstacle or a comparable compelling
reason prevents the performance of the task, or 2. the client requires the attorney to act contrary tothe law or good advocacy, and despite the warning, does not give up their demand. According tothese guidelines, there has been no reason for Attorney Nummelin to withdraw from his task at anystage.
Furthermore, according to Section 3.1, the attorney must be loyal to their client. The attorney isobliged to, while adhering to the law and good advocacy, to the best of their ability, protect theirclient's interests and rights.

According to Section 3.2, the attorney must be independent of external influences that may hinder
their ability to fully protect their client's interests. The attorney must not allow embarrassing orother similar circumstances related to the matter to affect the performance of the task. The attorneymust maintain their independence in their actions, even if it requires actions or decisions that are notpleasing to their client, the opposing party, authorities, or other parties.
According to Section 2.2, defending fundamental and human rights and maintaining the rule of law
require the independence of the legal profession from public authority. The state's demand, which, if
implemented, would have led to Vauhkala being left without legal representation, is considered
contrary to the guidelines on Good Advocacy.
The state's view that the lawsuit, based on the allegation of a violation by the state of the European
Convention on Human Rights, would be obviously baseless from the outset, has been based fromthe beginning on the state's desire to prevent a lawsuit uncomfortable for the state from beingbrought to trial. However, the state has taken advantage of its opportunity to request the District
Court to dismiss the lawsuit as groundless, and the District Court has not agreed to this. Thus, evenaccording to the District Court, the lawsuit is sufficiently justified to be considered.
For the state's view of the lawsuit being entirely groundless to be acceptable to the attorney, theattorney would have to completely reject the legal rationale presented in the case, consider that
Vauhkala would not have the right to enter a restaurant, regard significant medical studies and theviews of the medical experts who testified on the matter as complete nonsense, and dismiss the only
Finnish legal article written on the subject by Doctor of Law Muukkonen as likewise nonsense.
However, reaching such a view is entirely impossible from the standpoint of pure reason and legal
comprehension. We also note that Attorney Nummelin has not obtained a medical degree, so theassumption that he would be able to assess the medical studies presented and the accuracy of theopinions of medical experts as nonsense would require him to have at least obtained a medical
degree. However, this has not been the case in this instance, so Nummelin had no choice but to relyon the conclusions of the medical studies and the accuracy of the opinions of medical experts.
Contrary to the state's view, neither the grounds of the lawsuit, the legal facts related to the case, nor
the demands have changed.

On the reimbursement of legal costs
Based on the arguments presented in the trial, we, of course, continue to demand that both the stateand Fazer Ravintolat Oy be jointly liable for reimbursing the plaintiff's legal costs in the mannerpresented on Monday, April 15, 2024.

If, contrary to our view, the court finds that the plaintiff's case did not involve a violation of his
fundamental and human rights as presented in the trial, we nevertheless request the court to consider
that Vauhkala had sufficient grounds to bring his lawsuit before the court and that each party to thetrial would bear its own legal costs.

Respectfully,Aki Nummelin, Master of Laws