92 ANNUAL REPORT 2017 J. MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT AND FOOD The following statements on cases concluded in 2017 have been published: 2017-20. Partial access to environmental information in minister’s internal speech notes A journalist complained to the Ombudsman because the Ministry of Environment and Food had denied her access to the Minister’s speech notes from a citizens’ meeting about coast protection. The decision had been made with reference to the Environmental Information Act read with the provision on internal documents in section 7 of the 1985 Access to Public Administration Files Act. The Ombudsman agreed with the Ministry that the Minister’s speech notes were an internal work document. However, the Ombudsman was of the opinion that depending on the circumstances, some of the items in the speech notes could be subject to extraction under section 11(1) of the previous Access to Public Administration Files Act because, as far as he could tell, the information appeared to describe events which had already taken place, initiatives that had been implemented by the Government and measures which the Government had at that time decided to implement. The Ombudsman stated that the decisive factor when assessing whether speech notes contain information which is subject to extraction is not whether the minister actually chose to use the information during his or her speech, but the nature of the individual items of information and their context. In addition, the Ombudsman pointed out that to the extent some of the con­ tents of the notes were proposals or ideas for political or strategic decisions which the Minister might make (for instance at the time of his speech), they would in his opinion not be subject to extraction. The Ombudsman could not criticise the Ministry’s assessment and balancing of interests under section 2(3) of the Environmental Information Act, according to which the authority is required to conduct a specific balancing of the interests of the public which would be met if the environmental information was released as against the interests which would be met if access to the information was denied. The right to restrict access to the information is to be interpreted restrictively.