SUMMARIES OF SELECTED STATEMENTS The Ombudsman recommended that the Ministry reopen the case in order to consider – in the light of what he had stated – which of the information in the internal document was subject to extraction. The Ministry of Environment and Food subsequently reopened the case and granted the journalist access to various parts of the document. 2017-21. Processing time of appeals body in case about access to environmental information much too long A journalist complained to the Ombudsman because he still had not received a decision a year after lodging an appeal with the Environmental Board of Appeal (now the Danish Environment and Food Board of Appeal) against a refusal from the Danish Natural Environment Portal of access to an extract from a database with environmental information. Neither the Environmental Information Act nor the 1985 Access to Public Administration Files Act sets out time limits for decisions by the appeals body. The Ombudsman stated that for this reason, a specific assessment must instead be made of the processing time of the Danish Environment and Food Board of Appeal. However, the Ombudsman was of the opinion that it must be taken into account in this assessment that the Environmental Information Act stipulates an absolute time limit of two months for the processing of requests for access to information, and that the explanatory notes to the new Access to Public Administration Files Act – and the basic considerations behind the very principle of free access to public records – imply that cases concerning access to information, including appeals against decisions, must be processed with a certain speediness. The Ombudsman stated that in spite of the case involving questions of fundamental importance, and in spite of a number of other circumstances mentioned by the Danish Environment and Food Board of Appeal, a total processing time of more than 14 months, at the time of his statement, for an appeal against a decision on access to information was much too long and therefore a matter for criticism. The Ombudsman recommended that the Board expedite the conclusion of the case to the greatest extent possible. 93