The National Bureau of Investigation is applying for a leave of appeal on the Administrative Court’s decision issued on 17 December 2020, which overturned the National Bureau of Investigation’s decision and ordered the Bureau to remove encryption from a document. The National Bureau of Investigation has agreed on the procedure with the National Police Board.
In the case in question, the Chief Investigating Officer at the National Bureau of Investigation did not hand over pre-trial investigation reports, requested by a journalist, in full, but withheld the names of persons whom the police had suspected of being members of a group involved in organised crime.
The police want to establish precedents for openness issues in order to provide guidelines for how to interpret the challenging Act on the Openness of Government Activities in the field. Deputy Assistant Police Commissioner Niina Uskali of the National Police Board discusses the matter and background to it in a blog posted today on the police website.
“It is not the intention of the police to protect members in organised crime groups, but rather the opposite. However, the police must abide by the law, even if it may result in interpretations that seem peculiar to the general public. The authorities have no choice,” Niina Uskali says in her blog.
According to Uskali, the Act on Openness is challenging to interpret. Different, even partly contradictory decisions have been issued, based on interpretations of the Act. Precedents by the highest courts are necessary to clarify the interpretations.
Like the Parliamentary Ombudsman, the police hope that the Act on Openness be revised and updated as necessary to eliminate the situation in which there is room for unclear interpretations of the Act. As soon as legal practice or the Act change, the police will update their internal guidelines.
