Sweden: The Leander case
01 November 1997
On 20 August 1979 Mr Torsten Leander started work as a carpenter at the Naval Museum in Karlskrona, Sweden. On 3 September he was sent home during the working day and on 25 September he was told by the Museum Director that he had failed the obligatory state security vetting procedure. Mr Leander took his case to Strasbourg with the help of his lawyer Professor Dennis Töllborg from Gothenburg University. On 17 May 1985 the European Commission on Human Rights decided, by 8 votes to 7, that Mr Leander had been unable to "clearly substantiate that the registration on him did relate to his freedom to express opinions" (Report of the Commission, adopted 17 May 1985, p84) but agreed that the case could go forward to the European Court of Human Rights.
In March 1987 the Court decided against Leander by 4 votes to 3, those voting against were the Swedish judge, Mr Lagergren, the Turkish representative, Mr Gülcüklü, the UK judge, Mr Evans, and the German judge, Mr Bernhardt.
On 4 April 1997 Leander's lawyer, Professor Dennis Töllborg, referred the case back to the European Court of Human Rights (see Statewatch, vol 7 no 2).
Over ten years after the judgement of the Court, on 29 October 1997 Dennis Töllborg, Leander's lawyer, was allowed to see the whole file concerning the Leander case (see ECHR appl 9248/81). They showed Mr Leander had been put on file merely because of his political opinions and that the government completely misled the Commission and the Court.
On 27 November 1997 the Swedish government stated officially that neither in 1979, nor now, were there any grounds to label Mr Leander a "security risk" and that he was wrongfully dismissed from his job at the Naval Museum. As compensation for the unjust infringement of his rights the government gave him 400,000 Swedish crowns. Dennis Töllborg commented:
"This case might now, without exaggeration, be seen as the biggest scandal in modern history not primarily concerning the Swedish security police, but the whole judicial establishment in Sweden. We should remember that all reforms of security and intelligence services have always resulted from scandals."
The Leander decision has been used as a benchmark in other cases in Strasbourg. In the UK "effective remedies" are said to exist through the Tribunals set up to cover telephone-tapping and the security and intelligence agencies. The new evidence uncovered by Töllborg shows that the Commission and the Court reached their decision by accepting the "word" of the Swedish government that Leander was not on file because of his political opinions or legal, democratic activities.
With this assurance, and because the right of appeal (effective remedy) was in place and had been used and had come to the same conclusions as the government (that Mr Leander's vetting showed he should not be employed), they found that Mr Leander could not prove his case.
Background
Torsten Leander was born and raised in Karlskrona, a small town in the south-eastern part of Sweden. In January 1979, Leander was 28 years old when he and his wife met an old friend, Mr Warfvinge, in Stockholm who was working at the Naval Museum of Karlskrona.
Mr Warfvinge said that a vacancy was coming up at the museum in the autumn and, after he contacted the director of the Naval Museum, Mr Leander was promised employment as a carpenter for a period of 10 months. In the summer of 1979 the Leanders moved to Karlskrona - where his parents still lived - and in August the same year Mr Leander started work at the museum.
The Naval Museum is open to the public, photography is permitted and there were more than 50,000 visitors every year. All appointments at the museum were however security classified according to the regulations of the Swedish Personnel Control Ordinance (amended 1996, nowdays Säkerhetsskyddslagen; the Law for Protection of Security). All job applicants had to be (and still are) checked against the