50 Case No. 13/03344 Case No. 13/02368 A woman lived in a rented flat in a house which had formerly consisted of bedsits. The bedsits had now been converted into actual flats, and the woman lived in one of these flats on the ground floor. She had problems in getting her mail, as it was put in the wrong letter box. With the landlord’s consent, she therefore asked the municipality to register her flat as ‘ground floor r.’ (r. meaning ‘on the right’). When a man asked not to receive the local parish magazine, the parish clerk replied that according to an agreement with the Ombudsman, parish magazines are considered public information and are therefore to be distrib­ut­ ed to everybody. The man then wrote to the Ombudsman and said that he would like to see some documentation of this agreement. However, the municipality did nothing about it, and the woman complained to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman telephoned the municipality and subsequently forwarded the complaint to the municipality. Shortly afterwards, the municipality changed the address of the flat. The Ombudsman may help complainants in many ways. In some cases, the best solution is a telephone call to the authority. The Ombudsman replied, among other things, that he cannot enter into agreements with public authorities regarding their work, and that the same applied to the issue described by the complainant. The Ombudsman can express his opinion in statements which are not legally binding – possibly involving criticism of public authorities or a recommendation that an issue be reopened. Case No. 13/05082 Case No. 12/04974 The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) had postponed its reply to a citizen’s request for access 19 times without giving any concrete reason for the long case processing time. All 19 times, the Service wrote to the citizen that it expected to be able to process the request within the next 30 days. After reading about the case in a daily newspaper, the Ombudsman asked the Security and Intelligence Service and the Ministry for Justice for comments on the course of events. On the basis of the authorities’ replies, the Ombudsman stated that the Service’s handling of the citizen’s request for access to files was in violation of the Access to Public Administration Files Act and therefore regrettable. A month and a half after the Ombudsman had asked the authorities for their comments, the Security and Intelligence Service decided that the citizen could not be granted access to the files. It is not unusual that the Ombudsman takes up a case on his own initiative which has come to his attention due to media coverage. A 16-year-old girl had improved both academically and socially in the 2½ years she had been attending a small special needs school for young people with learning disabilities. She and her parents therefore wanted her to continue at the school for another year. But the municipality said no and instead referred the girl to an especially designed youth education programme at a special education centre. The parents appealed the decision, but the Appeals Board for Special Needs Education agreed with the municipality that the municipality’s offer was more suited to the girl’s needs, and the Board thereby concurred with the municipality’s decision. The parents complained to the Ombudsman, who reviewed the documents in the case but did not find any prospect of being able to criticise the result of the Board’s decision. Consequently, he did not accept the case for investigation. If, having reviewed the documents in a case, the Ombudsman sees no prospect of being able to criticise the authorities, he can close the case without asking the authorities for a statement on the case, pursuant to section 16(2) of the Ombudsman Act.