CENTRUM FÖR RÄTTVISA v. SWEDEN JUDGMENT
67. With a mandate similar to the Parliamentary Ombudsmen, the
Chancellor of Justice scrutinises whether officials in public administration
comply with laws and regulations and otherwise fulfil their obligations
(section 1 of the Chancellor of Justice Supervision Act – Lagen om
justitiekanslerns tillsyn; 1975:1339). The Chancellor does so by examining
individual complaints or conducting inspections and other investigations,
which could be directed at, for instance, the Foreign Intelligence Court and
the FRA. According to copies of an email exchange of April 2019 between
the applicant and the office of the Chancellor of Justice, twelve such
complaints were received in 2008 and one in 2013. Following examination,
none of those had been judged to require action.
68. At the request of the Chancellor, courts and authorities are obliged to
provide information and opinions as well as access to minutes and other
documents (sections 9 and 10). The decisions of the Chancellor of Justice
are similar in nature to the decisions of the Parliamentary Ombudsmen,
including their lack of legally binding power. By tradition, however, the
opinions of the Chancellor and the Ombudsmen command great respect in
Swedish society and are usually followed (see Segerstedt-Wiberg and
Others v. Sweden, no. 62332/00, § 118, ECHR 2006-VII). The Chancellor
has the same power as the Ombudsmen to initiate criminal or disciplinary
proceedings (sections 5 and 6).
69. The Chancellor of Justice is also authorised to determine complaints
and claims for damages directed against the State, including compensation
claims for alleged violations of the Convention. The Supreme Court and the
Chancellor of Justice have developed precedents in recent years, affirming
that it is a general principle of law that compensation for Convention
violations can be ordered without direct support in Swedish statute to the
extent that Sweden has a duty to provide redress to victims of Convention
violations through a right to compensation for damages (see Lindstrand
Partners Advokatbyrå AB v. Sweden, no. 18700/09, §§ 58-62 and 67,
20 December 2016, with further references). On 1 April 2018, through the
enactment of a new provision – Chapter 3, section 4 – of the Tort Liability
Act (Skadeståndslagen; 1972:207), the right to compensation for violations
of the Convention was codified.
70. In addition to its above-mentioned supervisory functions under the
Foreign Intelligence Inspectorate Instructions Ordinance and the FRA
Personal Data Processing Act (see paragraphs 52, 56 and 57 above), the
Data Protection Authority is generally entrusted with protecting individuals
against violations of their personal integrity through the processing of
personal data, under the Act with Supplementary Provisions to the EU
General Data Protection Regulation (Lagen med kompletterande
bestämmelser till EU:s dataskyddsförordning) which entered into force on
25 May 2018, the same day as the new EU regulation it supplements (see
paragraph 94 below). In regard to the signals intelligence conducted by the
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