Finland's Defenders of the Law

Abstract

In Finland, there are two organs supervising the legality of the actions of all tribunals and public agencies. The older one, that of Chancellor of Justice, has traditions dating back to the time, before 1809, when Finland still belonged to Sweden. The Chancellor works in close collaboration with the government and also acts as its legal adviser. The Chancellor is also head of all public prosecutors and is thus also entitled to investigate actions by private citizens. The younger of the two organs, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, was created after the country became independent, by the constitution of 1919. Except that the Ombudsman is entitled to supervise only actions by public officials, the two guardians of the law have similar over-all powers of authority, ranging from the municipal and church authorities to the government itself. In initiating their investigations, as well as in collecting the information needed, they have total freedom: freedom to use any lawful source of information and unlimited access to all documents, internal minutes included, as well as the right to attend meetings of all authorities under their supervision. The way of processing the information can be tailored to fit the case in hand. All decisions are checked personally by the Chancellor or the Ombudsman himself. Although their reaction to a given situation is at their own discretion, and although both guardians of law have the power to prosecute, or to order a prosecution or disciplinary action, such solutions have, over time, given way to a more flexible reaction—a reminder, issued to either the official or the agency concerned. The majority of cases originate in complaints from private individuals. In recent times, only about 6 per cent of the complaints have led to some kind of action by the two guardians of the law.