The Swedish Work Environment Authority has toned down and partially backed down from the requirement for both visor and oral protection at the Serafen housing in Stockholm. This has been done after extensive pressure from other authorities and from the municipalities' interest organization SKR. In a debate article in Aftonbladet, the LO districts have called it "a real scandal".

And now several experts agree with the criticism.

- I think this is very amazing. It is a matter of taking comments, but SKR is actually not an authority, says political scientist Marja Lemne at Södertörn University.

- No other authority may intervene in another authority's decision in an individual case. You must not do that, says Olle Lundin, professor of administrative law at Uppsala University.

Olle Lundin, professor of administrative law, takes a very serious look at what has happened. "No authority may interfere in the work of another authority."

"We get rescue officials"

Göran Sundström, professor of political science at Stockholm University, responds that the union has been left outside.

- An authority must live up to basic values ​​of objectivity and impartiality. Then you should make sure that all parties come along. There is a risk that you will only listen to those who shout the loudest.

If one authority changes to adapt to others, one has made mistakes, he says.

- There is a clear risk of backing up too much and reducing conflicts. Instead, as in this case, people become frustrated, there are low ceilings and we get scared officials.

Can't we say that we have a crisis situation where it is important for everyone to close up?

- Yes, but you can just as well argue that it is important in these particular situations that we make good and right decisions.

"May be criminal"

Olle Lundin also dismisses the idea that authorities must be coherent and that laws must not conflict.

- It is cumbersome to claim it, in that case it would apply every time the Swedish Work Environment Authority places itself on a public employer. Then you wouldn't be able to close a school either.

- You have to take care of the working environment and not what SKR thinks, for example. Then you have done wrong and then some head should roll somewhere. In a supervisory case, it is a matter of exercising authority and if one is wrong, it can be criminal, it can be a malpractice.