Freedom of expression expert: "The employer must not take any form of reprisal"

The person or persons, as in this case, who submit to criticism should not be afraid to do so, they should not even have to be anonymous. They have every right to turn to the media, no matter what the employer thinks.

- First, an authority must not tell employees that they are not allowed to talk to the media and limit their freedom of expression in a way that is not compatible with the Swedish constitution. The second is that we in Sweden have a unique freedom of communication, which means that employees within a municipality, home service or whatever it may be have the right to submit information to the media under anonymity protection. This is a provision that Parliament has introduced and is subject to, says Nils Funcke.

A public employer is also prohibited from investigating who has disclosed information or giving the employee some form of reprisal. That is to say, for example, lowering the salary, repositioning the person, they may not even give out a warning. As an employer, violating either the investigation or reprisal prohibition is punishable.

- In the very serious cases, some employers have been prosecuted for violating this so-called reprisal ban, says Funcke.

Private sector employees are not covered by the same protection as public employees.

- The right of anonymity is not as strong as when it comes to people employed by the municipality or a government agency, a private employer can make more far-reaching demands that employees, when submitting information to the media, have a loyalty requirement. But it is not so far-reaching that they cannot disclose any information at all.

Nils Funcke goes on to say:

- But a private employer is unable to investigate who has provided the information, there is a big difference. But regardless of who they find out who released the information, they are not allowed to take any measures, including a form of reprisal prohibition.

But there are exceptions to what one can disclose to the media.

- There are certain information that the right to freedom of communication and anonymity is violated and that is if you disclose information that concerns an individual patient or resident in a nursing home. There you are not allowed to disclose information about, for example, the state of health, even if someone has cunning, you can then disclose such information to anyone else at all. Without that, there is something that is protected by patient privacy, says Nils Funcke.