LEANDER v. SWEDEN JUGDMENT
7
Regarding his personal background, he furnished the following details to
the Commission and the Court. At the relevant time, he had not belonged to
any political party since 1976. Earlier he had been a member of the Swedish
Communist Party. He had also been a member of an association publishing
a radical review - Fib/Kulturfront. During his military service, in 1971-72,
he had been active in the soldiers’ union and a representative at the soldiers’
union conference in 1972 which, according to him, had been infiltrated by
the security police. His only criminal conviction stems from his time in
military service and consisted of a fine of 10 Swedish Crowns for having
been late for a military parade. He had also been active in the Swedish
Building Workers’ Association and he had travelled a couple of times in
Eastern Europe.
The applicant asserted however that, according to unanimous statements
by responsible officials, none of the above-mentioned circumstances should
have been the cause for the unfavourable outcome of the personnel control.
II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW AND PRACTICE
A. Prohibition of registration of opinion
18. According to Chapter 2, section 3, of the Swedish Instrument of
Government (regeringsformen, which forms the main constituent of the
Swedish Constitution and is hereafter referred to as "the Constitution"), "no
entry regarding a citizen in a public register may without his consent be
founded exclusively on his political opinion".
B. Secret police-register
19. The legal basis of the register kept by the National Police Board’s
Security Department ("the secret police-register") is to be found in the
Personnel Control Ordinance, which was enacted by the Government under
their regulatory powers and which was originally published in the Swedish
Official Journal (svensk författningssamling, 1969:446). Section 2 of the
Ordinance (as amended by Ordinance 1972:505) provides:
"For the special police service responsible for the prevention and detection of
offences against national security, etc., the Security Department within the National
Police Board shall keep a police-register. In this register, the National Police Board
may enter information necessary for the special police service.
In the police-register referred to in the first paragraph, no entry is allowed merely
for the reason that a person, by belonging to an organisation or by other means, has
expressed a political opinion. Further provisions concerning the application of this rule
shall be laid down by the Government."