Summaries of selected statements | 91 The man complained to the Ombudsman because the authorities had made their decision under the Access to Public Administration Files Act as he was of the opinion that the decision should have been made under the Environmental Information Act. In the Ombudsman’s opinion the decisive factor in whether the decision should have been made under the Environmental Information Act was whether the information in the case was comprised by section 3 paragraph (3) of the Environmental Information Act. Under the provision, information concerning measures affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment is environmental information. The Ombudsman found that a decision to renew or not to renew an alcohol licence was a ‘measure’, and that the same applied to a secretariat recommendation for the decision. The question was subsequently whether they were measures ‘affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment’. Based on an overall assessment, the Ombudsman was of the opinion that it was most likely that the information in the case was not comprised by the concept of environmental information as he did not find that the decision made by the Licensing Board and the Secretariat’s recommendation ‘were likely to affect the elements of the environment’ within the meaning of section 3 paragraph (3) of the Environmental Information Act. In this connection, the Ombudsman gave weight to, among other things, an opinion provided by the European Commission and the fact that in the case at hand, the specific measures did not in themselves relate to any environmental matters and could only have an indirect impact on the environment. 3) A digital letterbox service by which citizens and businesses can communicate with public authorities The Ombudsman therefore could not criticise that the authorities had not considered the request for access under the Environmental Information Act. Other authorities etc. within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction The following statements on cases concluded in 2018 have been published: 2018-1. Receipt and handling by Labour Market’s Holiday Fund of communications sent via Digital Post A complaint from a citizen caused the Ombudsman to open a general investigation on his own initiative with the Labour Market’s Holiday Fund about its ability to reply to communications sent to it via Digital Post3. The Ombudsman’s investigation showed, among other things, that the Fund used an IT solution which was flawed in respect of both recipient and sender functionality. As a result, the Fund had had problems replying to some of the communications which it had received via Digital Post. The Ombudsman stated, among other things, that citizens are entitled to use Digital Post in communication with public authorities which are connected to the Digital Post service as ‘public senders’. This follows from section 8 of the Act on Digital Post from Public Senders. As a result of this right, the authorities in question must be able to receive and handle communications sent via Digital Post. The Ombudsman was understanding of the fact that the legal and technical framework conditions for the Fund’s connection to Digital Post as a public sender had caused the Fund problems. The Ombudsman appreciated that IT solutions can be quite complex and that, depending on the circumstances, this can also be very much the case with special IT solutions at the individual authority. Nevertheless, it is an authority’s

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents