SUMMARIES OF SELECTED STATEMENTS
In the specific case, the Ombudsman was of the opinion that stating that the
information which had not been extracted could be found in documents of 1½,
3½ and 27 pages, respectively, was not sufficiently precise, as this did not make
it possible for the journalist to determine which specific information the Prime
Minister’s Office had omitted to extract. In the Ombudsman’s opinion the
Prime Minister’s Office should have referred to the specific pages and paragraphs containing the information.
N. MINISTRY OF HEALTH
The following statements on cases concluded in 2015 have been published:
2015-23. Extraction of information in internal document
A journalist complained to the Ombudsman because he had received a partial
refusal from the Danish Health Authority and the Ministry of Health to a
request for access to four files. The files were part of a case regarding an information note which the Ministry had asked the Authority to prepare.
The Ombudsman agreed with the Authority and the Ministry that two of the
files in their entirety and e-mails contained in the other two files were internal
documents covered by section 23(1)(i) of the Access to Public Administration
Files Act and therefore as a general rule exempt from access.
In the Ombudsman’s opinion, two of the files contained information that was
subject to extraction. However, the information in one of these files was also
included in other documents which were released to the journalist in response
to his request for access, and the Ombudsman could therefore not criticise that
the information was not extracted from the file.
The other file (File No. 4) contained, among other things, a summary of statements from an authority other than the Danish Health Authority ‒ namely the
Ministry of Health. These statements must be assumed to have been decisive
for the contents of part of the Authority’s information note as they appeared to
be decisions already made which the Authority subsequently was to carry out in
the final preparation of the information note. In these circumstances, the Ombudsman found that it was most likely that the statements were to be regarded
as information about the ‘factual basis’ of the case, and the information was also
to be considered relevant to the case.
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