(à jour pr. April 1998)
Unauthorized Translation from the Norwegian
Act of 19 June 1970 No. 69 relating to public access to documents
in the public administration as subsequently amended, most
recently by Act of 10 January 1997 No. 7 (short title: Freedom
of Information Act)
§ 1. The general scope of the Act
This Act applies to such activities as are conducted by
administrative agencies unless otherwise provided by or pursuant
to statute. For the purposes of this Act, any central or local
government body shall be considered to be an administrative
agency. A private legal person shall be considered to be an
administrative agency in cases where such person makes individual
decisions or issues regulations.
This Act applies to Svalbard unless otherwise prescribed by the
King.
This Act does not apply to cases dealt with pursuant to the
statutes relating to the administration of justice.
This Act does not apply to the Storting, the Office of the
Auditor General, the Storting's Ombudsman for Public
Administration or other institutions of the Storting.
§ 2. The main provisions of the Act
The case documents of the public administration are public
insofar as no exception is made by or pursuant to statute.
Any person may demand of the pertinent administrative agency to
be apprised of the publicly disclosable contents of the documents
in a specific case. The same applies to case registers and
similar registers and the agenda of meetings of publicly elected
municipal and county municipal bodies.
Notwithstanding that a document may be exempted from public
disclosure pursuant to the provisions of this Act, the
administrative agency shall consider whether the document should
nevertheless wholly or partly be made public.
§ 3. The concept of a document for the purposes of this Act
The case documents of the public administration are documents
which are drawn up by an administrative agency as well as
documents which have been received by or submitted to such an
agency.
A document is considered to be drawn up when it has been
dispatched, or if this does not occur, when the public agency has
concluded its handling of the case.
The King may prescribe regulations concerning the application of
the concept of a document for the purposes of this Act to
material that has been prepared, transmitted or stored by means
of electronic data processing.
§ 4. Deferred public disclosure in special cases
The pertinent administrative agency may decide in a particular
case that public disclosure shall first take place at a later
stage in the preparation of the case than that stipulated in
section 3, if it finds that the documents then available give a
directly misleading impression of the case and that public
disclosure could therefore be detrimental to obvious public or
private interests.
§ 5. Exemptions in respect of internal documents
Documents drawn up by an administrative agency for its internal
preparation of a case may be exempted from public disclosure.
The same applies to documents in respect of an agency's internal
preparation of a case which are drawn up
a. by a subordinate agency
b. by special advisers or experts
c. by a ministry for use in another ministry
The exemption also covers any document concerning the acquisition
of such a document. It does not apply to documents obtained as
part of the general procedure of inviting comments on draft
statutes, draft regulations or similar general matters.
The provisions of the first and second paragraphs do not apply to
recommendations made by the administration when a decision is to
be made by a municipal council or county council or by other
publicly elected municipal or county municipal bodies. Nor do the
provisions apply to recommendations from publicly elected bodies
when an administrative decision is to be made by a municipal
council or county council.
§ 5a. Exemptions in respect of information subject to a
statutory duty of secrecy
Information that is subject to a duty of secrecy imposed by or
pursuant to statute is exempted from public disclosure.
The rest of the document is public if such parts alone do not
give a clearly misleading impression of the contents or if the
inaccessible information does not constitute the main part of the
contents of the document. Legally classified documents may be
exempted in their entirety.
§ 6. Exemptions on the basis of the document's contents
The following documents may be exempted from public disclosure:
1) Documents containing information which, if it were to be
disclosed, could be detrimental to the security of the realm,
national defence or relations with foreign states or
international organizations
2) Documents for which exemption is necessary
a) in the interests of proper execution of the financial, pay or
personnel management of the central or local government or the
pertinent agency
b) in the interests of proper execution of general financial
agreements with business and industry.
c) because public disclosure would counteract public regulatory
or control measures or other necessary administrative orders or
prohibitions, or endanger their implementation
3) The minutes of the Council of State
4) Documents in cases concerning appointments or promotions in
the civil service. This exemption does not apply to lists of
applicants. Lists of applicants shall be drawn up as soon as
possible after the final date for submitting applications and
shall, in addition to the name of each applicant, contain the
applicant's age, position or professional title, and place of
residence or municipality where he or she works.
5) Complaints, reports and other documents concerning breaches of
the law
6) Answers to examinations or similar tests and entries submitted
in connection with competitions and the like
7) Documents prepared by a ministry in connection with annual
fiscal budgets or long-term budgets
8) Photographs of persons entered in a personal data register.
The term personal data register denotes registers, inventories
etc. in which photographs of persons are systematically stored so
as to enable an individual person's photograph to be retrieved.
When a case document is exempted from public disclosure, the
entire case may be exempted from public disclosure if the
remaining case documents would give a clearly misleading
impression of the case and public disclosure might be detrimental
to public or private interests.
§ 7. Public disclosure on the basis of lapse of time etc.
The King may decide that documents which come under section 6
shall be publicly disclosable when, because of the lapse of time
or for other reasons, it is obvious that the considerations which
have justified exemption from public disclosure no longer apply
If a case document has been deposited in public archives, this
decision shall be made by the head of the archives.
§ 8. How a document is to be disclosed
The administrative agency shall decide, having regard to the
proper conduct of the case, how a document is to be disclosed to
the person who has requested to examine it, and shall within
reasonable limits provide, on request, a transcript, print-out or
copy of the document.
If the person who has requested to examine the document is
entitled to see only parts of the document, disclosure may be
effected by providing excerpts thereof.
Transcripts, print-outs and copies shall be provided free of
charge. The King may, however, prescribe regulations concerning
payment for transcripts, print-outs or copies. The King may also
prescribe regulations concerning payment for documents made
available in electronic form.
§ 9. Procedure and appeal
Requests to examine documents pursuant to section 2, second
paragraph, shall be decided without undue delay.
If an administrative agency refuses a request made pursuant to
section 2, second paragraph, it shall indicate the provision
pursuant to which the refusal is made, and shall inform the
applicant of the right of appeal and the time limit for lodging
an appeal. If the grounds for refusal are to be found in section
5a of this Act, the administrative agency shall also indicate the
provision or provisions on which the duty of secrecy is based.
A person whose request to examine a document has been refused may
appeal against the refusal to the administrative agency that is
immediately superior to the administrative agency that has made
the decision. If the refusal is made by a municipal or county
body, the County Governor shall be the appellate instance. The
appeal shall be decided without undue delay. In connection with
the appeal proceedings, the appellate instance may decide that
the document shall wholly or partly be disclosed in accordance
with section 2, third paragraph. If the King is the appellate
instance, an appeal may be brought only on the question whether
there is power to exempt the document from public disclosure.
Otherwise, the provisions of chapter VI of the Public
Administration Act concerning appeals shall apply insofar as they
are appropriate.
§ 10. Consent to public disclosure of documents
If the request concerns a document containing information that is
subject to a duty of secrecy, cf. section 5a, and this duty of
secrecy ceases when the consent of the person entitled to secrecy
has been obtained, the request shall on application be submitted
to the person concerned for comment within an appropriate time
limit. Failure by the person concerned to reply shall be
considered a denial of consent.
§ 11. Regulations pursuant to this Act
The King may prescribe necessary regulations concerning the
implementation of this Act, including rules as to what kinds of
cases or
documents may be exempted from public disclosure pursuant to the
provisions of sections 5, 5a and 6. He may also prescribe
regulations concerning what should in cases of doubt be
considered to be an administrative agency. Furthermore, he may
prescribe regulations to the effect that certain private legal
persons shall be equated with administrative agencies for the
purposes of this Act.
In sectors in which the great majority of the documents could be
exempted from public disclosure pursuant to the provisions of
sections 5, 5a and 6, the King may make regulations prescribing
that all the documents may be exempted. Such regulations may be
prescribed only when particularly weighty reasons so indicate.
§ 12. This Act enters into force from the Date prescribed by the
King. The King may prescribe that the Act shall enter into force
in specified sectors of the administration by successive stages.
§ 13. This Act does not apply to documents prepared or drawn up
by, or received or submitted to a public agency prior to its
entry into force.
Source: University in Oslo: http://wkeim.bplaced.net/files/lov-19700619-069-eng.pdf. In Norwegian from Lovdata: http://www.statkart.no/IPS/filestore/cd2003/lover/offent.html.
Other source:
http://www.legislationline.org/documents/action/popup/id/6949
Governments publication 2003: http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/jd/Documents-and-publications/Laws-and-rules/reglement/2005/The-Freedom-of-Information-Act.html?id=107581#
A new law has been given and came into effect 1. January 2009:
http://www.lovdata.no/all/nl-20060519-016.html
English version: http://www.ub.uio.no/ujur/ulovdata/lov-20060519-016-eng.pdf
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