Publicity in administrative courts

The procedural documents and oral proceedings shall be public before the administrative court, unless the matter is a matter ordered to be kept secret according to the law.

The Act on the Openness of Judicial Procedure in Administrative Courts (381/2007) provides for pub-licity in administrative court proceedings.

Information on the trial

The basic information of the trial is usually public, notwithstanding the secrecy provisions. Such in-formation shall include information on the administrative court dealing with the matter, the nature of the case and the authority making the decision under appeal. However, according to the Act on the Openness of Administrative Courts, it is necessary to keep the identity of the party or other party involved confidential in certain cases.

Public access to documents

The judicial documents of administrative courts shall be public, unless there is a confidentiality cri-terion in the Act on the Openness or in any other act. However, data protection provisions may also affect the conditions for the transfer of public documents.

In connection with documents containing personal data, requesting additional information may sometimes be necessary to ensure the legality of the disclosure and to exercise the authority's dis-cretion. The form in which the information is requested to be provided, for example orally or visibly, or as an electronic, printout or copy, may affect what additional information is needed. Additional information from the applicant may be needed, for example on the purpose, processing grounds or protection of personal data, in order to ensure compliance with the data protection provisions.

Matters dealt with in the administrative court are often also those in which the obligation of secrecy is laid down. These include matters relating to social affairs, taxation, mental health or asylum.

Confidential documents include, for example, documents containing sensitive information on mat-ters relating to a person's private life, state of health, disability or social welfare.

A party shall, as a rule, have the right, notwithstanding confidentiality provisions, to be informed of claims or reports that may affect the consideration of his or her case. However, he or she does not have the right to obtain a document the secrecy of which is at issue in the proceedings. The contact details of the party or other party to the proceedings may also be encrypted if this is necessary due to, for example, a security threat to the person concerned.

In addition, a party shall not have the unconditional right to obtain a document containing infor-mation provided for to be kept secret if the provision of such information would be contrary to the best interests of the child or other very important public or private interest. The administrative court may also conceal information concerning business or professional secrecy.

Notwithstanding the secrecy provisions, the administrative court may disclose the procedural doc-ument to the extent necessary to ensure a fair trial or an important public or private interest in the matter.

The document shall be requested from the authority which handles or has dealt with the matter. The document request must be identified as well as possible. You should strive to specify a docu-ment request on the basis of, for example, the name and position of the party, the diary number, the decision information or the titles of the case. It is also good if the document to which the request relates can be allocated and limited in time to a specified period. The authorities help the person requesting the information by using different directories to find the matter to which the document relates.

Publicity of the oral hearing

The general rule is that the oral hearing of the case before the administrative court is public. How-ever, oral proceedings shall be conducted in full or in part in closed session if they deal with the matter or present information which is to be kept secret under the Act on the Openness or other law.

An oral hearing may be arranged in camera at the request of a party if the public hearing would harm the party and an important private or public interest does not require a public hearing.

The administrative court may authorise the filming or other recordings of oral proceedings. A permit may be granted if the recording does not cause significant inconvenience to the protection of the privacy of the party or the person to be heard and does not endanger his or her safety, nor does the recording harm the undisturbed conduct of oral proceedings.

Openness of the judgment

The outcome of the decision of the administrative court and the relevant provisions in the law ap-plied are always public. If the decision otherwise contains confidential information, the decision shall be kept secret insofar as it is necessary to protect the interest to be kept secret.

In an individual case, the administrative court may always decide that the decision is, in certain re-spects, public, notwithstanding the secrecy provisions. This requires that an important public or pri-vate interest so requires.