The Freedom of Information Act
PREFACE
This
unofficial translation of the Freedom of Information Act of 19 June 1970 No. 69 (offentlighetsloven) has been revised and updated to 20 June 2003. The revision was done by Ronald Walford
in close co-operation with Sandra Hamilton and subject to the approval of the
Ministry of Justice.
Any
comments on the terminology used or other aspects of the translation would be
welcome and should be addressed to:
Sandra
Hamilton
Assistant Director General
Translation Service
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
P.O. Box 8114 Dep
0032 Oslo
Translation from 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 20 June 2003 No. 45 (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. Rules concerning
the public disclosure of documents for these bodies shall be prescribed by
special statutory provisions or by a plenary resolution of the Storting.
As regards the right to require
information concerning the environment, the Environment Information Act and the
Product Control Act also apply.
§ 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. The administrative agency shall keep a register
pursuant to the provisions of the Archives Act and its regulations.
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
logically limited amount of information stored in a medium for subsequent
reading, listening, presentation, or transfer shall be regarded as a document.
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.
§ 4.
Deferred public disclosure in special cases1
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.
For case documents drawn up by or for
the Office of the Auditor General in cases that it is considering presenting to
the Parliament as part of the constitutional control, public disclosure can
first take place when the case has been received by the Parliament or when the
Office of the Auditor General has notified the administrative agency concerned
of the conclusion of the handling of the case, cf. section 18 second paragraph
of the Office of the Auditor General Act of 7 May 2004 no. 21.
§ 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 case documents with enclosures presented to a
publicly elected municipal or county municipal body.
§ 5 a.
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
the remaining 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. Information concerning an applicant may, however, be
exempted from public disclosure if the applicant himself or herself so
requests. The list of applicants shall state how many applicants there have
been for the post and their sex.
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.
9) Documents
containing information obtained by continual or regularly repeated personal
surveillance.
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.
§ 6 a.
Exemption to prevent commission of criminal acts
Information
that needs to be exempted because public disclosure would facilitate the
commission of criminal acts may be exempted from public disclosure. The same
applies to information that needs to be exempted because public disclosure
would facilitate the commission of acts that may harm parts of the environment
that are particularly vulnerable or threatened with extinction.
The rest of
the document is public if the remaining 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.
§ 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, with
due regard for the proper conduct of the case, decide 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 5 a 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 5 a,
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, 5 a 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, 5 a 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.2 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.
