31 CASE NO. 14/05441 CASE NO. 15/01190 Scientific articles often have several authors – but if a complaint is filed concerning the contribution of one of the authors, the other authors do not have the status of parties to the case and are therefore not informed of the complaint. When staff from the Ombudsman’s Monitoring Department visited a psychiatric ward, a patient told them that she could not get a reply to her request for access to her medical record. A researcher complained to the Ombudsman about this state of affairs. He had learned indirectly that the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD) had received a complaint about the contribution by one of his colleagues in, among others, articles where he himself was listed as first author. The visiting team raised the question with the ward’s management and staff. It turned out that the staff thought they could refuse the patient access on medical grounds. The visiting team informed them that the rules had been changed. Refusing psychiatric patients access to their medical record was no longer allowed unless the record entries pre-dated 2010. The Ombudsman asked the DCSD to consider whether co-authors ought to have status as parties. The DCSD did not think so – however, the DCSD would in future inform co-authors to articles of complaints about the scientific work produced by others who have contributed to the articles in question. The Ombudsman makes monitoring visits to many different kinds of institutions. The purpose is to inspect the conditions for persons who live at the institution or use it daily. In 2015, the Ombudsman’s staff made a total of 49 monitoring visits. When the Ombudsman starts processing a case, he investigates, among other things, whether the authorities have observed the relevant rules – for instance the rules in the Public Administration Act that govern the authorities’ work. CASE NO. 15/01084 Following an assessment of the work environment at one of the State Administration’s local departments, an interest group urged the Ombudsman to investigate all the authority’s child and family cases. The State Administration had been told to improve the mental health work environment, and the interest group was therefore concerned that the quality of the authority’s case processing was not satisfactory. The Ombudsman replied that he did not find grounds for a general investigation. He also wrote that the Ombudsman’s main task is to consider specific decisions. The Ombudsman can carry out general investigations of an authority’s case processing – on the basis of a complaint or at his own initiative. This sort of investigation is rarely undertaken, partly because it takes a lot of time away from the ongoing processing of complaints. CASE NO. 15/00751 How do you weigh the right to family life against the regard for enforcement of the law? The Department of the Prison and Probation Service allowed the latter to outweigh the former when refusing a request for leave from a long-term prisoner who wanted to participate in an important family event. In its refusal, the Department emphasised, among other things, the very serious crimes for which the man had been sentenced. The man’s lawyer complained to the Ombudsman about the refusal. She wrote, among other things, that the regard for law enforcement, which the Department used as an argument, was abstract and undocumented as long as the man was not allowed leave and thereby the opportunity to show that the Department’s objections were not valid. The Ombudsman replied that he had decided not to investigate the case in further detail. Refusing the man’s wish for leave was not contrary to the rules – and nor was there anything else in the Department’s case processing which the Ombudsman thought that he would be able to criticise. Pursuant to section 16(2) of the Ombudsman Act, the Ombudsman can choose to close a case without asking the relevant authority for a statement if the complaint does not provide grounds for criticism or recommendation.