Transparens i svensk valkampanjfinansiering

Sammanfattning: Despite the fact that the issue has been discussed for several decades, there are still no rules in Sweden mandating political parties and candidates to disclose received donations. Because of this lack of transparency, Sweden is not fulfilling some of its international obligations and has fallen behind in the international trend to increase the transparency of election campaign finance. The lack of disclosure rules in Sweden has led to extensive criticism, most notably from the Council of Europe´s group of states against corruption, Greco, who criticized Sweden in light of the guidelines on the subject from the Council of Europe. At this writing, a new proposal for disclosure rules is being prepared at the Department of Justice, DoJ. The proposal is to be presented in spring 2013. For the time being, the only thing that exists regarding transparency of election finance in Sweden is an agreement from 2000, struck between some of the parties in parliament, to voluntarily disclose some of their received donations. In 2004 a government report proposed implementing disclosure rules. The proposal received extensive criticism from the reviewing bodies regarding its compliance with the rights protection in the Swedish Instrument of Government, RF. RF provides absolute protection against the government forcing individuals to disclose their opinions in political matters and absolute protection against the government keeping records of individuals' political opinions. Since these rights are absolute, they can be restricted only by constitutional amendment. It is uncertain if disclosure rules can be considered infringements under these absolute provisions, but even if they are considered infringements, it is likely that the disclosure provisions can be designed so as not to violate the RF absolute protections. Furthermore, RF provides relative protection of the freedom of expression and association. Disclosure rules would probably not infringe the freedom of expression but are likely to be considered infringements of the freedom of association. Restrictions of the freedom of association can only be implemented in the order specified in RF and since the order for restricting the freedom of association is very rigid, it is unlikely that such a restriction would be allowed under the current RF. The DoJ has expressed that the pending proposal will not include a proposal for a constitutional amendment. For Sweden to fulfill its international obligations in regards of transparency in campaign finance, more extensive disclosure rules must be implemented than those included in the agreement between some parties in parliament and those included in the 2004 proposal. The DoJ has expressed, however, that the pending proposal will be modeled upon both the voluntary agreement and the 2004 proposal. It is therefore not entirely unlikely that the pending proposal will be either illegal under the constitution or not far reaching enough, or both.