It was a short time for Anna Kinberg Batra as governor of Stockholm. Last Friday, Minister of Civil Affairs Erik Slottner (KD) announced that the government no longer has confidence in her and that she is forced to leave her post as governor in Stockholm. She will now be transferred to the Cabinet Office and will retain her salary until February 2029.
The announcement was made the day after the Justice Ombudsman’s criticism on Thursday, which concluded that the constitutional requirement for objectivity was not followed in the attention-grabbing recruitments carried out by the governor.
Could lead to fines or dismissal
Göran Sundström, professor of political science at Stockholm University, is critical of the fact that Kinberg Batra’s actions have not been legally tested. He believes that despite the harsh criticism from JO, it should be investigated whether the action can lead to legal sanctions.
– In this case, I think that the legal route has been tried too little. When it is this type of serious crime, you have to test whether the regulations support legal liability.
If it were to be tried, what legal penalties could it face?
– There is a scale, from warnings, through fines, but also dismissal if it turns out that it is a more serious crime. It needs to be tested so that the public can maintain trust in our legal system, says Göran Sundström, professor of political science at Stockholm University.
During the day, SVT applied to the Ombudsman for Justice (JO) and state prosecutor Thomas Forsberg.