72 | Annual Report 2018 The Ministry of Justice subsequently informed the other ministries of its views and published the information on the Public Access Portal and on www.retsinformation.dk, the official legal informa­tion system of the Danish state. Both the regional police force and subsequently the National Police maintained that if the police officer had intended to express his views in a private capacity, he should have made sure that it appeared in the article that this was what he had done. 2018-20. Remarks made by police officer to newspaper appeared as if made on behalf of police force. Summoning police officer to disciplinary hearing not an infringement of public employees’ freedom of expression A local police officer expressed his views to a news­ paper on the effects of a duty system which had re­cently been adopted for police officers in the area. In the resulting article, the police officer was quoted with reference to his being a local police officer. In the Ombudsman’s opinion the quotation in the article was most likely to be understood as the police officer making statements on behalf of the police force. In addition, the Ombudsman took for his basis that the police officer had not informed the newspaper that his remarks were made in a private capacity and not on behalf of the police force. The regional police force found that the police of­ ficer’s remarks appeared as if they had been made on behalf of the police force. The police officer was therefore summoned to a disciplinary hearing, at which it was stressed that in accordance with the press policy of the regional police force, contact with the press was the responsibility of the management and that employees could only make statements to the press with prior permission of their immediate superior. The police officer was of the opinion that he had expressed his views in a private capacity and that the police force was restricting his freedom of expression as a public employee. For this reason, he complained about being summoned to the disciplinary hearing, stating, among other things, that he had no control over what job title was stated in the newspaper article. In addition, he found that it was of no significance whether he was quoted as a police officer as the local population knew who he was anyway, among other reasons because he was on the local council. On that basis, and because the police officer had not obtained prior permission to make statements on behalf of the police force – as required by the press policy – the Ombudsman could not criticise that the police officer had been summoned to a disciplinary hearing. 2018-27. Internal specialist assessment for use in connection with response to press enquiry was not part of case comprised by section 29 of Access to Public Administration Files Act The Ministry of Justice had denied three journalists access to documents concerning the Ministry’s communication with the Ministry of Immigration and Integration on account of an enquiry from a newspaper. The newspaper wished to publish a story about the press release issued by the Minister for Immigration and Integration on 10 February 2016 about separate accommodation of young asylum-seeking couples. The documents of the case were internal documents and ministerial advice and assistance documents, which are in principle exempt from access. One of the documents contained an internal specialist assessment in final form. However, the question was whether this assessment was part of a case about a political initiative comprised by section 29 of the Access to Public Administration Files Act and was thus subject to extraction.