RESTRIC TIONS ON VISITS AND LEAVE can then revoke a visiting permit. A decision to revoke a visiting permit can be appealed after it has been reviewed by the Prison and Probation Service.6 On 12 March 2020, the Prison and Probation Service decided on a new annex (Annex 7) to its health and medical care handbook. The annex contained, inter alia, a description of the routine for processing inmates’ visits, and it appeared that inmates were only allowed to receive so-called official visits. Other visits to inmates were not allowed until the Public Health Agency of Sweden deemed that the risk of the spread of the disease considered to be dangerous to the public was low. Furthermore, it appeared that the Prison and Probation Service’s staff would continue to make decisions in matters concerning visiting permits. Parliamentary Ombudsman Katarina Påhlsson stated that there are strong humanitarian reasons for inmates in remand prisons and prisons to have the opportunity to meet, for example, their children and close relatives during the time they are deThe temporary of their liberty. In the routine has made it prived view of the Parliamentary uncertain whether Ombudsman, visits, as well an inmate could have as other opportunities to the right to receive communicate, are important visits tested by a hig- parts of a humane prison regime and help to counteract her instance the negative consequences of deprivation of liberty. She further stated that the Prison and Probation Service’s approach – limiting the rights of inmates through a description of a routine in an annex to a handbook – appeared to be problematic, not least from 6 For a detailed description of the system of visiting permits, see the Royal Supreme Administrative Court Annual Report 1992, case ref. 65 (RÅ 1992 ref 65) and the Supreme Administrative Court case no. 6950-14. 6 a perspective taking the hierarchy of norms into account. The Parliamentary Ombudsman further stated that, in the legislative history of the Prisons Act and the Remand Prisons Act, there had been no reasoning concerning the Prison and Probation Service’s need to be able to introduce general visiting restrictions to prevent the spread of an infection. The agency is also not covered by the Restrictions on Visits in Certain Compulsory Care Act. The Parliamentary Ombudsman stated that the Prison and Probation Service had nevertheless decided this general routine which meant that the agency continued to grant applications on visiting permits, and had not revoked already granted permits. Parliamentary Ombudsman Katarina Påhlsson stated that the effect of this scheme was the same as if the Prison and Probation Service had temporarily revoked visiting permits, and in practice the agency had applied it so as to achieve the same result as would have been the case if the Restrictions on Visits in Certain Compulsory Care Act had been applicable to the agency’s activities. The Parliamentary Ombudsman did, however, note that decisions under the above-mentioned law can be appealed. Thereafter, the Parliamentary Ombudsman stated, inter alia, the following:7 “[It is] in my opinion doubtful whether it is possible for an inmate to appeal a decision where the Prison and Probation Service has approved an application for a visiting permit but at the same time provided general information that visits cannot currently be made. The application for a visiting permit has, after all, been approved. It is true that it is for a court to ultimately decide whether a decision is subject 7 See the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s decision of 30 June 2020, ref. no. O 122020. – 41 –