Freedom of Information: A Comparative Legal Survey - Federation of ...

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Introduction
Sweden has extensive constitutional protection for the right to information. Article 1 of Chapter 2 of The
Instrument of Government, one of the four founding documents of the Swedish Constitution, states:
Every citizen shall be guaranteed the following rights and freedoms in his relations with
the public institutions:
…
(2) freedom of information: that is, the freedom to procure and receive information and
otherwise acquaint oneself with the utterances of others. 256
Sweden is somewhat unique inasmuch as the entirety of its right to information law is part of the Swedish
Constitution. Chapter 2 of the Freedom of the Press Act, another of the four founding constitutional
documents, entitled “On the Public Nature of Offi cial Documents” is effectively the Swedish right to
information law (RTI Law). 257
Sweden is also unique inasmuch as it was the fi rst country in the world to adopt a law granting individuals
the right to access information held by public bodies, having incorporated right to information provisions in
the original Freedom of the Press Act in 1766. The right to access, and to correct, personal data is provided
for by the Personal Data Act. 258 The Secrecy Act is also effectively incorporated into the RTI Law as the
regime of exceptions, 259 and it contains various provisions implementing the right to information, such
as an obligation to register documents and to organise databases with due consideration for the right of
access to offi cial documents
The Swedish RTI Law has a number of strengths and weaknesses. It lacks some of the provisions found
in many more recent right to information laws, such as proactive obligations of disclosure, provision for
independent administrative appeals and proactive measures to promote openness. It also excludes a
number of documents from the scope of the Law, rather than including all information held by public
bodies, subject to the regime of exceptions. At the same time, it has a number of very progressive rules. It
requires all secrecy provisions to be set out in one central law. It also includes strong procedural guarantees,
including an obligation on public bodies to create a public register of all of the documents they hold.
It is generally agreed that the culture of openness in Sweden is very strong and entrenched, after over
200 years of experience with the right to information. According to Swanström, this was originally based
on an understanding by political parties that openness would help promote a more level playing fi eld for
them when they were not in power, a mature view to which few modern democracies seem to subscribe.
At the same time, there are ongoing challenges, including frequent amendments which seek to expand the
scope of the Secrecy Act, as well as confl ict with the European Union, which has sometimes sought to limit
Swedish openness on the basis of a lowest common denominator approach. 260
The Right of Access
Article 1 of Chapter 2 of the Law states simply: “In order to encourage the free interchange of opinion and
the enlightenment of the public, every Swedish subject shall have free access to offi cial documents.” This
provides a general but important interpretive background for the Law.
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