24 | Annual Report 2019 Environmental information and rules regarding balancing of assessment rules Pursuant to the Environmental Information Act, there are two special rules regarding balancing of assessment rules which must be observed when processing a case about access to documents: • The general rule on balancing of assessment rules: The access to limit access to documents must be used restrictively, taking society’s interests in publication of the information into account. • The specific balancing of assessment rules: In each case, the public interests which are protected when information is made available must be weighed out against the interests that are protected when access is denied. The balancing of the assessment rules means that the exemptions under the old Access to Public Administration Files Act from 1985 must be interpreted restrictively. And, even if an exemption provision can be used generally to deny access to documents, access can only be denied if the interests protected by the refusal are weightier than the interests protected by making the information available. other things, include practice laid down by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) when interpreting the Act. Basically, the Environmental Information Act gives every person the right to be notified of environmental information. However, there is only one basis in this connection. The limitations (exemptions) stipulated in the old Access to Public Administration Files Act remain applicable when using the Environmental Information Act. In addition to this, things are further complicated by the fact that the old Access to Public Administration Files Act must be interpreted restrictively in cases regarding environmental information. This is laid down in the so-called balancing of assessment rules of the Environmental Information Act (see factbox). If you disregard the special rules that directly follow from the Environmental Information Act, you can generally say that the question about access to environmental information must be processed according to the old Access to Public Administration Files Act. On certain points, the old Access to Public Administration Files Act gives access to more information than the new Access to Public Administration Files Act but in relation to other matters it gives access to the same particulars. The widely discussed section 24 of the new Access to Public Administration Files Act – the so-called ministerial advice and assistance regulation – does not exist in the old Access to Public Administration Files Act. All things being equal, this means that it is easier to obtain access to documents concerning the political decision-making process when it comes to environmental information. Other provisions like for example the provision that you can exempt internal documents from the right to access and the provision that you must supply (extract) actual information are more or less the same under the old and the new Access to Public Administration Files Act. Even if the Environmental Information Act must be used, there is no guarantee that you can get access to the information you require. Criticism from the technical journalist Back to the case (Case No. 2018-2) about the technical journalist who had written critical ar ticles about the Ministry’s memorandum on shifting motorists from cars to trains. He wanted