Freedom of information in Sweden, the USA and the UK
Right to Information · Unit I · Topic 1 of 16 · 6 min read
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Cases checked to exist. Read the judgment before quoting a holding.
Every case cited here has been checked to exist — the citation resolves and names the right parties. The propositions attributed to each case have not been verified line by line against the judgment. Case names link through to the full judgment: read it before quoting a holding in an examination answer, and never carry a proposition from notes into court on trust.
1. Why the comparative history is set
The Indian Act of 2005 did not appear from nowhere. Its drafters had before them laws that had been working for decades elsewhere, and several of its features — a time limit for replies, an independent appellate body, a list of exemptions with a public interest override — come from that experience. The syllabus therefore begins with Sweden, the USA and the UK. In the examination the question usually reads “Trace the historical development of freedom of information in Sweden, USA and UK”, sometimes joined with the position in India before 2005.
2. Sweden: the first law, 1766
Sweden is credited with the world’s first freedom of information law. The Freedom of the Press Act of 1766, passed by the Riksdag, abolished political censorship of printed matter and, for the first time, gave the public a right of access to official documents. The moving spirit is usually identified as Anders Chydenius, a priest and member of the Riksdag, who argued that the free circulation of public documents was the best check on misgovernment.
The principle that emerged is known as the principle of public access (offentlighetsprincipen). Its features are worth listing because they remain the model:
- Every official document is public unless a law specifically declares it secret. Openness is the rule; secrecy needs a statutory basis.
- Anyone may ask, without giving a reason and, in general, without giving his name.
- Constitutional status. The Freedom of the Press Act is today one of Sweden’s fundamental laws, so the right is entrenched, not merely statutory.
- Exceptions are listed by law, now in a separate statute on public access and secrecy, and must be read narrowly.
- Supervision by the courts and by the Parliamentary Ombudsman, an office Sweden created in 1809.
The Swedish law also extended to Finland, then under Swedish rule, which is why the Nordic countries share the tradition.
3. The United States: FOIA, 1966
The American Freedom of Information Act was signed by President Lyndon Johnson on 4 July 1966 and took effect the following year. It is codified at 5 U.S.C. §552. It replaced a provision of the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 that had allowed agencies to withhold records “for good cause”, a phrase which in practice meant almost any cause.
Its main features:
- “Any person” may request records — citizens, foreigners, companies. There is no need to show an interest.
- It applies to federal executive agencies. Congress, the federal courts and the President’s immediate personal staff are outside it.
- Nine exemptions, including national defence and foreign policy, internal personnel rules, matters exempted by other statutes, trade secrets, inter-agency deliberative memoranda, personnel and medical files whose disclosure would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy, and law enforcement records.
- The burden is on the agency to justify withholding, and the requester may sue in a federal district court, which examines the matter afresh.
The Act was weak in its first years: agencies delayed and charged heavy fees. After the Watergate affair, Congress passed the 1974 amendments over President Ford’s veto. They imposed time limits for replies, allowed courts to inspect withheld documents privately (in camera), provided for costs against the Government and for disciplinary action against officials who withheld records arbitrarily. The same year saw the Privacy Act, 1974, giving individuals access to records about themselves, and in 1976 the Government in the Sunshine Act required many federal bodies to hold their meetings in public. The Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments, 1996, brought electronic records within the Act and required agencies to place frequently requested material online.
4. The United Kingdom: from secrecy to the 2000 Act
Britain came late, because its tradition was the opposite: government business was confidential unless the Crown chose to publish it. The Official Secrets Act, 1911, especially its notorious section 2, made the unauthorised disclosure of almost any official information an offence. That section was replaced by the narrower Official Secrets Act, 1989, which confines the offence to specified classes such as security, defence and international relations. Access to historical records came through the Public Records Acts of 1958 and 1967, which opened most records after thirty years.
The first general scheme of access was non-statutory: the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, 1994, policed by the Parliamentary Ombudsman. The Freedom of Information Act, 2000 followed. It was brought fully into force on 1 January 2005. Its features:
- A general right of access to information held by public authorities, open to any person anywhere, with a duty to reply within twenty working days.
- Absolute exemptions (for example, information supplied by the security services, or information whose disclosure would be a contempt of court) and qualified exemptions, where information is withheld only if the public interest in keeping it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
- A duty on each authority to adopt a publication scheme for proactive disclosure.
- Enforcement by an independent Information Commissioner, with appeal to a tribunal and then on points of law to the courts.
- A ministerial veto over certain decisions. In R (Evans) v. Attorney General (UK Supreme Court, 2015), concerning letters written by the Prince of Wales to ministers, the Court held the veto could not be used simply because a minister disagreed with a tribunal’s considered decision.
Scotland has its own Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, 2002, with a Scottish Information Commissioner.
5. What India took from these models
- From Sweden: openness as the rule and secrecy as the exception, and the rule that a requester need give no reasons (section 6(2) of the RTI Act).
- From the USA: fixed time limits, the burden on the authority to justify refusal (section 19(5)), and severance of exempt parts (section 10).
- From the UK: an independent commissioner as the enforcing body, proactive publication (section 4), and the public interest test applied to exemptions (section 8(2)).
Where India differs: the right under section 3 belongs only to citizens, whereas the American and British laws are open to any person; and India added personal penalties on the officer who defaults (section 20), which neither of the older statutes has in that form.
How this is examined
As a 16-mark essay: “Trace the history of freedom of information in Sweden, USA and UK.” Write one section per country with the date, the Act, the enforcement body and the treatment of exemptions, then end with the paragraph on what India borrowed. The April 2021 paper asked instead for the development “prior to the RTI Act, 2005 in India”; begin that answer with two or three sentences from this note and then turn to the Indian material in the next note. Examiners reward the three dates and the names of the statutes; a long account of the political background earns little.
Now try the real questions: Right to Information past question papers.