Sweden: Leander case back to court
01 March 1997
On 4 April lawyers, Professor Dennis Töllborg and Ek dr Krister Sundin referred the Leander case back to the European Court of Human Rights asking for a new trial.
In the Leander case - which Mr Leander lost by four votes against three, with the chairman voting for him and the Swedish representative against - the central question was if the Swedish vetting system in its practice was: a) strictly necessary regarding national security and b) in accordance with law. Two factual circumstances, where the Government and Mr Leander diverged in their description of the system in practice, were decisive in deciding the outcome of the dispute.
The first was the extension of the vetting procedure. Mr Leander - who was dismissed as a carpenter from a public museum because he was regarded as a security risk - claimed that the extension of the vetting procedure clearly went beyond the limits for what fairly can be said to be necessary for defending the national security. According to Mr Leander the vetting procedure included more than 185,000 different jobs and there were more than 100,000 checks every year, a remarkable high number considering that the total population is just over 8 million citizens. The Government claimed that the real figures had to be kept secret in interest of national security (Verbatim record from the Hearing, 10 October 1983, tape 15/4). However, the Government did say that when Mr Leander said that there were more than 100,000 controls every year, that was "an exaggeration" and that: "The system which we have concerns only relatively speaking a small number of posts" (Verbatim record from the Hearing, 10 October 1983, tape 13/5 and 15/1). "Not even the total number of matters concerning appointments (initial personnel checks as well as follow-up checks) per annum and where information is handed out amounts to anywhere near this figure." (Department of Justice in a letter to the Commission, dated April 12 1984, dnr 1319-83). On 20 June 1990 the so-called Sepo commission published the real figures; in 1989 more than 410,000 services were subject to vetting procedure, following the Swedish personnel control ordinance, and more than 120,000 checks were made the same year. In 1991 there were 87,816 checks, in 1992 215,251 and in 1993/94 133,249 (Governmental Official Reports, SOU 1990:51 and 1994:149). The figures, the lawyers say are astonishing, not least because the former Minister of Justice claimed in 1985 that there had been extensive work on reducing the number of checks and services subject to the personnel control system (Minister of Justice Wickbom on Swedish Radio news, 1 August 1985). The Government had simply lied about the figures.
The second question on the outcome of the trial was the question of whether the system "was in accordance with law". The main discussion here focused on article no 13 in the personnel control ordinance, regulating the checked person's right to defend themselves. This article was changed, 10 days before the hearing before the European court on 10 October 1983, after the Government had been forced to admit that the former rule had never been applied. Leander's lawyers claimed that the change meant that in practice the new paragraph excluded the communication of any substantive information to the person being checked. The Government said: "Mr Töllborg alleges that the exception from the main rule more or less neutralizes the latter. That is certainly not correct." (Department of Justice in a letter to the Commission, dated April 12 1984, dnr 1319-83). Once again this is untrue. The paragraph was studied by the so-called Sepo commission in SOU 1990:51. The commission unanimously stated that: "The fact that this rule in the personnel control ordinance gives the impression that the main rule is that the controlled person is to be given the facts of the case, when the truth is that in practice it's the reverse, must be said to be very questionable" (page 265: "Redan det