SUMMARIES OF SELECTED STATEMENTS 2015-38. Criticism of time taken by Ministry of Justice to process request for access to document On 17 December 2014, a journalist asked the Ministry of Justice for access to a supplementary report from the Immigration Service on the so-called Eritrea case. Not until 3 February 2015 did the Ministry acknowledge receipt of the journalist’s request and inform him of the expected processing time. Subsequently, the Ministry informed the journalist several times that the case was still pending – the grounds given being primarily that the Ministry was still in the process of going through the files covered by his request. On 17 March 2015, the journalist complained to the Ombudsman as the Ministry of Justice still had not made a decision in the case. On 27 April 2015, the Ministry granted the journalist access to the document which he had requested. On the same day, the Ministry made a statement to the Ombudsman expressing its regrets about the excessive time it had taken to process the journalist’s request. The Ministry explained that its long processing time was due, among other things, to a decision to process the journalist’s request together with a considerable number of other, more comprehensive, requests for access to documents of the Eritrea case. Thus, when receiving the journalist’s request, the Ministry had not been sufficiently aware that he was requesting access to one document only. This also meant that the content of the Ministry’s letters informing the journalist about delays was misleading. The Ombudsman stated that – based on an overall assessment of the errors which had been made – the Ministry’s processing of the case was to be regarded as a matter for extreme criticism. 2015-43. Information in specific cases concerning individual persons’ employment within the public sector was also included in a general case. No specific assessment was made in relation to the general case of whether the information could be exempted from access A journalist asked the Department of the Prison and Probation Service for access to information about disciplinary cases relating to abuse of clients committed by employees of the Prison and Probation Service in the period 2006 137