Summary

A newspaper reporter sent an e-mail to the manager of human resources in Laholm municipality to ask if there were any personnel cases regarding the municipality’s street engineer. The reporter requested to disclose “possible warnings directed towards the street engineer, possible notices or agreements on termination or likewise”.

When the request was made the municipality had taken a decision to suspend the street engineer from his position. In spite of this the manager replied, to the reporter, that there were no documents that corresponded to the reporter's request.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman notes that it is not possible to interpret the reporter’s request in any other way then that it also included the decision on suspension, and that the manager of human resources could reasonably not have come to any other conclusion. The Parliamentary Ombudsman directs criticism towards the manger for giving misleading information and prolonging the disclosure of a public document. The manager is also criticised due to the fact that she, at a later point in time, asked the reporter why she was interested in the street engineer’s file, which violates the prohibition against seeking to obtain certain information pursuant to the Freedom of the Press Act.