- Act on the Openness of Government Activities 21.5.1999/621 (Unofficial translation)(Amendments up to 1060/2002 included; amendments 2005/701, 2005/495, 2004/281 and 2003/684 not included)
- Chapter 1 - General provisions
- Chapter 2 - When documents enter the public domain
- Chapter 3 - Right of access to a document
- Chapter 4 - Granting access to a document
- Chapter 5 - Duty of the authorities to promote access and good practice on information management
- Section 17 — Taking the right of access into account in decision-making
- Section 18 — Good practice on information management
- Section 19 — Duty of the authorities to provide access to information in pending matters
- Section 20 — Duty of the authorities to produce and disseminate information
- Section 21 — Production of sets of data on request
- Chapter 6 - Secrecy obligations
- Chapter 7- Derogations from secrecy and declassification
- Section 26 — General principles for granting access to secret information
- Section 27 — Access to archival documents
- Section 28 — Official permission to gain access to a secret document
- Section 29 — Granting access to secret information to some other authority
- Section 30 — Granting access to secret information to the authority of a foreign state or to an international institution
- Section 31 — Declassification
- Section 32 — Application to the duty of non-disclosure
- Chapter 8 - Miscellaneous provisions
Act on the Openness of Government Activities 21.5.1999/621
(Unofficial translation)
(Amendments up to 1060/2002 included;
amendments 2005/701, 2005/495, 2004/281 and 2003/684 not included)
Chapter 1
General provisions
Section 1 — Principle of openness
Official documents shall be in the public domain, unless specifically otherwise provided in this Act or another Act.
There are specific provisions that apply to the right to attend Parliamentary plenary sessions, meetings of municipal councils and other municipal bodies, court hearings and meetings of ecclesiastical bodies.
Section 2 — Scope of application
This Act contains provisions on the right of access to official documents in the public domain, officials’ duty of non-disclosure, document secrecy and any other restrictions of access that are necessary for the protection of public or private interests, as well as on the duties of the authorities for the achievement of the objectives of this Act.
Section 3 — Objectives
The objectives of the right of access and the duties of the authorities provided in this Act are to promote openness and good practice on information management in government, and to provide private individuals and corporations with an opportunity to monitor the exercise of public authority and the use of public resources, to freely form an opinion, to influence the exercise of public authority, and to protect their rights and interests.
Section 4 — Authorities
For the purposes of this Act, authorities are defined as:
(1) State administrative authorities and other State agencies and institutions;
(2) courts of law and the other bodies for the administration of the law;
(3) State enterprises;
(4) municipal authorities;
(5) the Bank of Finland, including the Finance Supervision Authority, the National Pensions Institution and other independent institutions subject to public law; however, this Act applies to the documents of the Pensions Security Centre and the Agricultural Pensions Institute as provided in paragraph (2);
(6) Parliamentary agencies and institutions;
(7) ˜land authorities, when performing the duties of State authorities in ˜land;
(8) independent boards, consultative bodies, commissions, committees, working groups, investigators, as well as auditors of municipalities and federations of municipalities, and other comparable organs appointed for the performance of a given task on the basis of an Act, a Decree or a decision of an authority referred to in subparagraph (1), (2) or (7).
The provisions on an authority also apply to corporations, institutions, foundations and private individuals appointed for the performance of a public task on the basis of an Act, a Decree or a provision or order issued by virtue of an Act or a Decree, when they exercise public authority. Separate provisions apply to access to the documents of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Section 5 — Official document
For the purposes of this Act, a document is defined as a written or visual presentation, and also as a message relating to a given topic or subject-matter and consisting of signs which, by virtue of the use to which they are put, are meant to be taken as a whole, but are decipherable only by means of a computer, an audio or video recorder or some other technical device.
An official document is defined as a document in the possession of an authority and prepared by an authority or a person in the service of an authority, or a document delivered to an authority for the consideration of a matter or otherwise in connection with a matter within the competence or duties of the authority. In addition, a document is deemed to be prepared by an authority if it has been commissioned by the authority; and a document is deemed to have been delivered to an authority if it has been given to a person commissioned by the authority or otherwise acting on its behalf for the performance of the commission.
Subject to the exceptions provided in paragraph (5), the following are deemed not to be official documents:
(1) a letter or other document sent to a person in the service of an authority or to an elected official because of another task performed or position held by the recipient;
(2) notes kept by a person in the service of an authority or a person commissioned by an authority and such drafts which have not yet been released for presentation or other consideration;
(3) documents procured for in-service training, information retrieval or any other comparable internal activity of an authority;
(4) a document given to an authority for the performance of a task on behalf of a private party, or prepared for this purpose;
(5) a document left with or handed in to an authority as lost property.
This Act applies to documents prepared for negotiations or communications between persons in the service of authorities or between authorities and private individuals or corporations acting on their behalf, or for other comparable internal activities of such authorities, only if the documents contain such information that, according to the archives legislation, they are to be archived. However, if the documents are archived, the authority may order that access to them may be granted only by permission of the authority.
The provisions on document secrecy in section 24 of this Act or in another Act apply also to documents referred to in paragraph (3)(2) and paragraph (4).
Chapter 2
When documents enter the public domain
Section 6 — When a document prepared by an authority enters the public domain
Unless otherwise provided on document publicity or secrecy or another restriction of access to information in this Act or another Act, a document prepared by an authority shall enter the public domain as follows:
(1) an entry in a continuously updated diary or comparable register enters the public domain when it is made; however, information on a suspect in the diary of a prosecutor enters the public domain only after the application for a summons or the prosecutor’s summons has been signed or verified in a similar manner, or after the public prosecutor has decided to waive prosecution or the matter has lapsed;
(2) in cases other than those referred to in subparagraphs (3) and (4), an invitation to tender, to provide information or to comment, as well as a proposal, a proposition, a motion, a notification and a petition, including any appendices, enters the public domain when it has been signed or confirmed in another comparable manner;
(3) in cases relating to a service or procurement contract or any other contract based on tenders, a request for information supplementary to the tender and any other accounts and documents prepared for the consideration of such tenders enter the public domain when the contract has been awarded;
(4) the budget propositions of ministries and the agencies and institutions within their fields of competence enter the public domain when the Ministry of Finance has signed its first position on the budget proposition; thereafter, the propositions sent to the Ministry of Finance from the other ministries and the other propositions drafted for and included in the budget proposal enter the public domain when the budget proposal has been submitted to Parliament;
(5) studies and statistics, as well as other comparable accounts which, forming a coherent whole, contain information on the alternatives, reasons and impacts pertaining to a decision or plan of general importance, even when they otherwise concern unfinished business, enter the public domain when they are fit for their purpose;
(6) minutes enter the public domain when they have been scrutinised and signed or confirmed in a comparable manner, unless they have been kept for the preparation of a matter or for the internal use of the authority;
(7) a court order or judgment enters the public domain from the moment it is handed down or when it is made available to the parties;
(8) a decision, a statement, an instrument and a contractual commitment of an authority, as well as the pertinent memoranda, minutes and other documents not referred to in subparagraphs (1)—(3) or (5)—(7), enter the public domain when the decision, statement, instrument or contract has been signed or confirmed in a corresponding manner;
(9) a document not referred to in subparagraphs (1)—(3) or (5)—(7) enters the public domain when the consideration of the pertinent matter has been concluded by that authority.
Notwithstanding the provisions in paragraph (1), commission reports, discussion papers and other similar documents intended for general dissemination enter the public domain when they are in the possession of an authority for dissemination.
If an instrument or other document is to be issued, the authority shall, where necessary, make its best effort to provide the parties to the matter with information on the contents of the document before it enters the public domain.
Section 7 — When a document delivered to an authority enters the public domain
Unless otherwise provided on document publicity or secrecy or another restriction of access to information in this Act or another Act, a document delivered to an authority for the consideration of a matter or otherwise in connection with a matter within its jurisdiction or duties shall enter the public domain when the authority has received it.
Expert opinions and other such documents that are to be opened at a given time or after the lapse of a given period shall enter the public domain, subject to the restrictions referred to in paragraph (1), after the moment they have been opened. Procurement, service and other tenders that have been delivered to an authority on the basis of an invitation to tender and that result in a contract enter the public domain, subject to the restrictions referred to in paragraph (1), when the contract is awarded.
Unless otherwise provided in the rules of secrecy or some other restrictions of access, a document that can be deciphered only by means of a device enters the public domain at the earliest when it is available to an authority or a person acting on behalf of the authority.
Section 8 — General dissemination of a document
Statistics on the development of the national economy, initiatives and action plans of economic policy and other similar documents the contents of which could obviously have an impact on the capital and financial markets, shall be generally disseminated as soon as possible after the event referred to in sections 6 and 7.
Chapter 3
Right of access to a document
Section 9 — Access to a document in the public domain
Everyone shall have the right of access to an official document in the public domain.
Access to a document which is not yet in the public domain under sections 6 and 7 shall be granted at the discretion of the authority. The provisions in section 17 shall be taken into account when discretion is exercised.