The teacher asked the Parliamentary Ombudsman to investigate whether or not the warning was appropriate.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman finds that the issuing of the warning was a violation of the complainant's freedom of speech and thus also constituted a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Finnish Constitution. According to Jääskeläinen, the teacher's employer had failed to find a balance between a public servant's freedom of speech and duty of loyalty.

The City was asked to report to the Parliamentary Ombudsman on the actions taken as a consequence of his proposal by 16 February 2015.

Warning issued for inappropriate action

The teacher was entitled to publish his critical views

The Parliamentary Ombudsman considers that the teacher had a right to make public his concerns and critical views concerning problems in his branch of administration. The writing continued a discussion on children's welfare, to which the complainant contributed a new viewpoint.

- Children's welfare at school is a topic of high societal importance. The threshold  must be high when it comes to intervening in writings and articles that concern topics of important public interest, says Jääskeläinen.

No specific school, teacher or guidance counsellor was identified in the writing. Jääskeläinen finds that the criticism directed at a teacher and a guidance counsellor concerned them as public servants not as private persons. Using negative adjectives to describe them in the writing was unavoidable for the writer to get his message across. In the right context, even scathing words are permissible.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman considers that the statements about the teacher's employer also were criticisms bringing up problems that could not be used as a justification for issuing a warning. The writing did not cause significant damage to the school's reputation. Neither did the warning clearly question the writer's motives.

"When a professional educator is the weakest link", a writing published in Aamulehti on 3 April 2013 and 8 April 2013

"The article published in the Näkökulma column was a brave and open description of a school psychologist's work (AL 29 March). Professionals of the mind have a significant role in supporting the students in the results-oriented and fast-paced world of the school, but there is one phenomenon that leaves even them powerless: professional educators who are unsuited for the profession.

To what extent are the anxieties of a young person struggling with growing pains increased by a teacher or a guidance counsellor with a personality disorder who acts illogically and makes the students pay for his or her own mistakes?

In practice, an unsuitable adult may hold a post at school for years without any intervention in the problem. The complaints of students and parents fall on deaf ears as the teacher's colleagues stay silent and superiors cover it all up, since the most important objective of the school is to preserve a clean and shiny façade and attract a steady influx of students. Not even the employer's lawyers have the courage to attack a public servant in the teaching sector if no clear official misconduct can be proven.

In case of a mentally unstable professional educator, the greatest sufferers are the same quiet youngsters who also fail to be noticed at home. When there is room for improvement in the school, the best student is a silent student.

As the academic years roll by, the stakes become higher, and in the worst case an anxious student in need of mental support is sent in a wrong direction in his or her further studies. It is immoral to claim that the best comprehensive school in the world did everything it could for that student."