The cornerstone of unity

5 THE PRINCIPLE OF TRANSPARENCY
Finland is an open and democratic society. According to Section 21 under the Constitution of Finland provisions 
concerning the transparency of proceedings, the right to be heard, the right to receive a reasoned decision and 
the right of appeal, as well as other guarantees of a fair trial and good governance, are laid down in an act. 
The so-called principle of transparency is often regarded as a Swedish institution, but it is in fact part of 
Finland’s common history with Sweden. One of the people who formulated the principle was the Finn Anders 
Chydenius, who represented the Ostrobothnian clergy in the Swedish parliament during the 1760s. The Swedish 

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state was in crisis during the first half of the 18th century. Having lost two wars against Russia, widespread 
corruption threatened the very existence of the whole state. At the same time the philosophy of the age of the 
Enlightenment championed devolving more power to the people and greater control of those in power (e.g. the 
separation of powers inherent in Montesquieu’s tripartite system). The ability of the parliament that consisted of 
the four estates to monitor the use of power was very limited, however. The estates met rarely and they didn’t 
receive information about the government’s decisions. Apart from this, censorship limited political discussion. 
The idea of freedom of information thus gained wide support especially amongst estates other than the nobility 
in the 1750s. 
Anders Chydenius was especially active in 1765
–66 in lobbying for freedom of information. The eventual 
Freedom of Information Act followed very closely the views put forward by Chydenius in his memos and other 
writings. In 1766 the parliament accepted the Freedom of Information Act and it became a part of the constitution. 
This law stated that “everyone has the right to access government documents and make copies of them”. The 
Freedom of Information Act guaranteed Swedes and Finns a wider freedom to publish than existed anywhere 
else. Additionally, almost all government documents became open to the public. This was an unforseen 
innovation in monitoring government activity. 
The constitution from the Swedish state remained in force in Finland when the country came under Russian 
control in 1809. When Finland became independent in 1917 the principle of transparency became part of the 
legislation regarding the freedom to publish. Nowadays the principle is very detailed and part of the act that 
governs the transparency of government activity. According to section one of this act, documents produced by 
civil servants are public if not legally decreed otherwise. 
The demand that limits on accessing official documents have to be legislated in parliamentary law is there to 
guarantee that any limitations on publicity are unavoidable and based on reasons that the majority of the 
population would be ready to accept. This also guarantees that the mere embarrassing nature of certain 
information from the perspective of a single civil servant or a ministry is not enough to stop information entering 
the public sphere. Furthermore, publicity helps ensure that civil servants work efficiently and official procedures 
are not tainted by favouritism or discrimination. In many surveys Finland has been named as one of the world’s 
least corrupt countries. 
Finland the Freedom of Information Act and related laws state that not all government information is open to 
the public. The reason for secrecy may be public interest (e.g. state security, crime prevention) or private interest 
(e.g. to protect children or protect private life). Many official decisions that affect individual people are however 
open in Finland. For instance, information about what people have paid in taxes along with their taxable income 
is in the public domain, and the information always ends up in the tabloids. 
The law on freedom of information requires that if a public official refuses to give government documents to a 
citizen, a formal, written decision must be delivered including the grounds for the refusal. This kind of 
administrative decision can be appealed in the administration court, where the matter is settled by an 
independent court. The openness of official documents in Finland is monitored efficiently through the justice 
system. 
The Finnish media also closely monitors how the principle of transparency is being executed in practice. 
Attempts by government officials to prevent media access to information easily leads to courtroom appeals and 
negative stories in the press. The courts have in recent years granted access to e.g. an individual civil servants’ 
expenses and taxi journey reimbursements and how well different high schools did in the final exams,
The principle of transparency has a number of functions in Finland’s political life too. It guarantees everyone 
the right to access information, and thus promotes equality among citizens with regards to the information 
society that we live in. It supports free opinion and democracy and promotes quality in all forms of media. 
The principle of transparency ensures transparent government. Open government is part of the preemptive 
guarantee of justice, i.e. it promotes a good quality of government decision-making and ensures that justice is 
fairly served. The principle of transparency enables citizens to efficiently control government and makes it easier 
for people to effect change. It promotes the free formation of opinion and helps democracy flourish in practical 
terms, and it also promotes the high quality of the media. With regards to the current information age, the 
principle of transparency is also linked to the demand for civil servants to follow a good governance of 
information as they execute their duties. Civil servants have to take care of documents and information systems 
and the accessibility, usability, completeness and protection of the information that they contain, along with other 

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factors that influence the quality of the information. It does not thus suffice that the information is provided on 
request, rather civil servants must ensure that it is genuinely accessible to everyone. Civil servants’ different files 
must also form a clear system that enables citizens to find the information they are looking for. 
The principle of transparency has been adapted to suit different kinds of places and has spread from Sweden 
and Finland to other places in the world. For example, in 1966 the USA accepted the freedom of information act 
(FOIA) and, according to Wikipedia, there are similar laws in more than a hundred countries. Sweden and 
Finland have also demanded that the principle of transparency be followed in the European Union. The Treaty of 
Amsterdam, which amended the treaty that established the European Union, included an article on the public 
availability of official documents. Based on this article the European Parliament and Council passed an act on 
access to documents (EU n:o 1049/2001) which rules that the public has access to the documents produced by 
the European Parliament, Council and Commission. In this way the principle of transparency has become part of 
general European legislation. 
Lasse Lehtonen, Administrative Chief Physician,
Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa