Stockholm: 12 March 2010

Sweden’s Lagrådet (Legislative Council) has published a document titled: Lag om vidareutnyttjande av handlingar från den offentliga förvaltningen.

An approx translation of the document states:

“Extract from minutes of meeting 2010-03-12

Currently: Ex Counselor Bo Svensson, the former Governing Body Kjerstin Nordborg and Counselor Ann-Christine Lindeblad.

Act on the re-use of documents held by public management

According to a Council on Legislation February 25, 2010 (Ministry of Finance) the government has decided to seek the Council of State of Candidates Bill on re-use of documents from the public administration.

The proposal before the Council on Legislation has been preferred by the subject experts Ylva Lilja and topic expert Gustaf Johnssén.

The proposal raises the following opinion of the Council on Legislation:

It referred the draft law on re-use of documents from the public administration is intended that the Swedish law implementing European Parliament and Council Directive 2003/98/EC of 17 November 2003 on the reuse of information from the public sector, the so-called PSI Directive.

The law is, in itself, built in a logical manner, beginning with the law's purpose and scope, following the definitions, conditions, etc. Council of State would still question whether it is appropriate to postpone the definitions of "document" and "reclamation" until § 6 and thus leaving the reader who begins with 1 and 2, § § without information that these words have special meaning in the law.

1 §

In the paragraph first paragraph referred to the law aim is to promote development of an information market by facilitating the individual's use of documents provided by authorities in conditions that may not be used to restrict competition. As Legislative Council perceives it is the two things mentioned in paragraph namely the law purposes, to promote the development of an information market, and the funds will be used to this end, achieved, namely to facilitate the individual's use of documents provided by authorities on terms not be used to restrict competition.

That paragraph is formulated for the final stage in the text to be interpreted as the law just take a view on documents provided by authorities in conditions that may not be used to restrict competition.

The wording of the final stage in the first paragraph, moreover, leaves the reader uncertain whether it is the Authority or the individual who may not use conditions to restrict competition.

Because of the foregoing suggests the Council on Legislation to end the first paragraph with a point after the words "provided by the authorities". The remaining text should be redrafted and placed as a second paragraph in the paragraph. In this context, the Council on Legislation also remarking that the charges are treated as conditions of the law in their own heading. The heading immediately preceding § 8 should rightly read "Other conditions ".

In accordance with the foregoing suggests the Council on Legislation that the paragraph be reads as follows:

The purpose of this Act is to promote the development of an information market by facilitating the individual's use of documents provided by authorities.

The law contains provisions designed to prevent authorities decide on such terms as to how the documents may used to restrict competition.

Provisions relating to the provision of documents found in the other statute.

10 §

The first sentence implies that an authority in principle to grant an exclusive right to re-use documents. Only if it is necessary to provide a service of general interest as an exclusive right may be granted to anyone. The public interest mentioned in the sentence is, to judge from the Constitutional commentary, to met through a commercial publisher sells information from Agency acts on an information market.

With the restrictive approach to exclusive rights which characterizes the first sentence, it is natural that such rights be limited in time. A exclusive right under the second sentence may be granted for a term not exceeding three year. The time cannot be extended and no mention of whether the holder can come back with an application for an exclusive right to re-use documents of the same kind under a new three-year period. The silence on this point may imply that you cannot get an exclusive right to the same thing for another period. This goes beyond Directive, which requires a reconsideration of the terms will be done every three years.

According to the third sentence, the exclusive right be published. In the continuing the preparation of legislative matter how this should be developed Publication will take place.”

Related news topics

Sweden: new law on PSI reuse published!