'Offentlighetsprincipen', the right

'Offentlighetsprincipen', the right access to official documents

During the work to formulate and enact an Indonesian "Freedom of Information Act", Indonesian legislators and others concerned, have for reference, studied similar legislation in other countries in order to exchange experiences and discuss specific conditions.

One of the countries that has received parliamentary delegations has been Sweden, where freedom of information -- in Swedish offentlighetsprincipen -- is well-entrenched.

Sweden has four organic or fundamental laws, which together constitute the Swedish equivalent to a constitution. One of these four is the Freedom of the Press Act, which protects the right to publish printed matter without government restrictions, and gives citizens the right of access to official documents.

Another one of the four is the Law on Freedom of Expression, which protects the freedom of expression in mass media and elsewhere.

Even though historic circumstances -- the principle of the accessibility of official documents was already implemented within the Swedish legislation in 1766 (which was also the first time the Swedish word "ombudsman" appeared in legislation) -- are not applicable today, the reasoning behind the introduction of accessibility remains the same.

In order to give the public a mechanism with which a certain degree of control over the government and authorities could be exercised, a system of transparency and openness was needed.

With this principle in place and fully respected, the public is able to protect themselves from any perceived or real wrongdoings, is able to check and control the authorities in handling certain matters, and the media is given an instrument which it can use in their work of examining the government.

The principle is now enshrined in the Freedom of the Press Act, which gives Swedish citizens and foreign nationals the right to access official documents.

The act contains a number of provisions which explain what is meant by the concept of "official documents", but put simply, a document is official if it is held by a public authority, and if it has either been submitted to the authority or has been given its final wordings at the authority.

The word "document" today also includes tape recordings and automatic data processing (including the ever larger stream of e- mails).

In order to make this system of accessibility for the public work, and for it to be as transparent as is intended, a system of registration of all incoming and outgoing documents is required by all public authorities.

This means that each authority maintains an archive which is accessible to the public. Practically, this means that any person can ask to see any documents he or she wishes to see.

However, not all official documents are available to the general public.

The Freedom of the Press Act permits certain documents to be kept secret so as to safeguard interests defined in the act, for example documents related to national security, or personal and financial circumstances of individuals (the classification of documents is the domain of another law, the Secrecy Act).

If a person is denied access to a certain document, with reference to the provisions in the Freedom of the Press Act, an appeal may be lodged with a court of law, which then has to decide whether the authorities made the right evaluation.

The Swedish offentlighetsprincipen -- the principle of the government being publicly accessible -- is well-entrenched in the Swedish system of governance, and has turned Sweden into one of the most transparent and open societies in the world.