ECLI:FI:KHO:2019:89

The Board of the Sámi Parliament had applied for the annulment of the legally valid decision awarded by the Supreme Administrative Court on 30 September 2015, under which it was ordered that A be included as an eligible voter in the electoral roll of the Sámi Parliament elections of 2015. The annulment application was justified by referring to the opinions issued by the UN Human Rights Committee on 1 February 2019, in which it considered that Finland had breached the rights set out in the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights owing to the fact that the Supreme Administrative Court's interpretation of the preconditions for including a person in the electoral roll of the Sámi Parliament, as laid down in section 3 of the Act on the Sámi Parliament, was not based on reasonable, objective criteria especially insofar as so-called overall evaluation had been resorted to in the decisions.

The Supreme Administrative Court stated that it appeared from the grounds of the Supreme Administrative Court's decision that according to the evidence received, Saami language could be considered as the first learnt language of the mother of A's grandmother. Therefore, A’s mother could have been included as an eligible voter in the Sámi Parliament elections. By decision of the Supreme Administrative Court, it was ordered that A be included in the electoral roll of the Sámi Parliament pursuant to section 3(3) of the Act on the Sámi Parliament.

Thus the question in the matter was not of a situation referred to in the application for annulment issued by the Board of the Sámi Parliament, in which the Supreme Administrative Court had applied so-called overall evaluation as grounds for inclusion in the electoral roll. The Supreme Administrative Court found that the application did not give reason for annulling the decision concerning A.

Administrative Judicial Procedure Act, section 63(1)

Act on the Sámi Parliament, section 3

See also Supreme Administrative Court 2019:90