SUMMARIES OF SELECTED STATEMENTS The Ombudsman agreed with the Ministry that it was regrettable that the Ministry did not consistently inform the man of further delays before the dates by which it had previously informed him that it expected a decision to be made. In addition, the Ombudsman found it regrettable that when the Ministry had informed the man of delays along the way, it had been unable to give him a realistic estimate of when a decision could be expected. 2017-12. Writer’s diaries copied, kept and archived by Danish Security and Intelligence Service A writer had his diaries seized in connection with the investigation by the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) of a case against him back in 1981. The original diaries were returned to the writer when the case against him was dismissed five months later. In 2009, the writer discovered that PET had kept a copy of his diaries all through the years. The writer asked PET to hand the copy over to him, but PET assessed that the copy was to be kept for posterity as a consequence of an agreement between the Danish National Archives and PET. The writer complained to the Ombudsman, stating, among other things, that the authorities had breached his copyright by declining to hand the copy of his diaries over to him. On investigating the matter, the Ombudsman found no grounds for criticising the decisions of PET and the Ministry of Justice. The Ombudsman included Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, among other provisions, for the purpose of assessing whether the writer’s privacy had been invaded. The Ombudsman could not criticise that the Ministry of Justice found no basis for establishing that it was illegitimate for PET to make a copy of the diaries in 1981-82 in connection with its investigation of the case against the writer. In addition, the Ombudsman found no grounds for criticising that the Ministry found no basis for establishing that PET was not entitled to keep a complete copy of the diaries on the operations case file after the case against the writer had been dismissed in 1982. 85