APPENDIX B: SUMMARIES OF SELECTED CASES R. MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT No cases concluded in 2012 were selected for publication in the Annual Report. S. MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS The following case concluded in 2012 was selected for publication in the Annual Report: 2012-16. No access to information on the Queen’s bestowal of the Grand Cross order on the King of Bahrain A journalist complained that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had refused him access to correspondence between the Danish Royal Household and the Danish embassy in Riyadh concerning the Queen’s bestowal of the order of the Grand Cross on the King of Bahrain. The Ministry was of the opinion that some of the information in the correspondence could be exempted pursuant to section 13(1)(ii) of the Act on Public Access to Documents on Public Files on relations with foreign powers. The Ministry referred to the fact that the information had been obtained during a confidential dialogue between the Royal Household of Bahrain and the Danish embassy in Riyadh. The Ministry was further of the opinion that all of the correspondence could be exempted pursuant to the ‘omnibus clause’ in section 13(1)(vi) of the Act on Public Access to Documents on Public Files on essential regards for the public interest. The Ministry stressed that the Queen’s bestowal of decorations is in principle not covered at all by the Act and that the Royal Household is in a very special position as it is dependent on the assistance of Danish embassies when establishing contact – and exchanging information – with foreign heads of state prior to royal visits abroad, including information on the possible exchange of decorations. With regard to the Ministry’s interpretation of section 13(1)(ii), the Ombudsman could not on the existing basis of information consider it sufficient that the Ministry had solely in more general terms based its refusal on the grounds that 119