Sweden
Principle of Public Access (Tryckfrihetsförordningen, ch. 2)
SFS 1949:105, 2 kap.
The world's oldest FOI regime (1766), carried in the constitutional Freedom of the Press Act. Secrecy grounds live in a separate act, the OSL (2009:400), and each withholding must cite a specific OSL section.
The clock
No fixed deadline
Records must be produced 'genast eller så snart det är möjligt' — at once, or as soon as possible. In practice same day to a few days; there is no fixed number to run a clock against.
No fixed deadline. Aletheca does not run a countdown against this statute and does not record a constructive denial on elapsed time alone — a breach here has to be argued from the facts of the request, not asserted from a number.
Requests can be anonymous and are commonly answered by the registrar (registrator) within a day or two.
Reading the statute itself
The text of this one is not reproduced here: foreign legislation is published under its own country’s copyright rules, so it is linked instead. Everything on this page — the deadline, the appeal path, the fee standard — is Aletheca’s summary of that text, and the official source is one click away.
If they refuse
- Appeal deadline
- 21 days — three weeks to appeal a written refusal decision
- Appeal route
- A written, appealable refusal from the authority, then Kammarrätten (administrative court of appeal).
- Litigation
- Kammarrätten, then the Supreme Administrative Court with leave.
Fees and expedition
Fee-waiver standard
Inspection is free; copies charged by schedule after the ninth page.
Aletheca argues this on every request it files here. A service that publishes every page it receives, free, to a public archive has an unusually strong showing — considerably stronger than a private requester’s.
Exemptions it allows
- OSL 15 kap. — foreign-affairs and defence secrecy (Offentlighets- och sekretesslag 2009:400)
Quirks worth knowing
No fixed deadline is not a loophole here — 'promptly' is enforced culture, and Swedish authorities are among the fastest responders anywhere.