The complaint against county council politician Bente Spissøy from Bømlo, for sharing a photo of the deceased Shada Al-Barghouti in the Vestland county council email system, has been dismissed by the South-West Police District.
Spissøy was mentioned in the media in May, when she had sent an email with case documents to the group leaders on the Vestland county council. Attached was, among other things, a scene-of-crime photo of the deceased 16-year-old.
The purpose was to gather support for having the child welfare case reopened.
Chief legal officer in Vestland County Municipality, lawyer Bertil Søfteland, intervened and sent an email to all county politicians. It stated that «the attachments are mainly police documents (sic) and should never have been sent. Please note that it is not permitted to share such information further».
The dismissal documents that Spissøy has access to suggest that it was Søfteland’s contact with the police that triggered the complaint.
– They contacted the police, presented the case and were encouraged to report the matter, but chose not to stand as the formal complainant, because this could conflict with the principle of political objectivity. Søfteland stands as a witness. No complainant is listed, she writes in a social media post on Thursday.
The initiative towards the county council did not succeed, as it did not receive enough votes.
Spissøy now represents the DNI party, after previously having been a member of INP. She has been heavily involved in the Shada case and held a speech at a press conference earlier this year.
The Shada case is, according to the politician, Norway’s biggest miscarriage of justice. When she refers to the death, she is in no doubt that «the girl was killed in the custody of the state».
The girl was killed in the custody of the State, and the cover-up of the crime is alarming. That is why the case must receive its political solution!
Shada Al-Barghouti was from Florø. That is why it is the Vestland county council that must deal with the case politically. It is legally required of the elected county representatives to take responsibility in cases where citizens’ rights have been set aside. The ball ends up in the county council chamber!
Is it unpleasant? Yes!
Is it shocking? Yes!
Can the county council representatives choose to look away? No!
What does it mean then – that the bureaucrats report representative Spissøy to the police, in order to prepare, document and present the case to the county council?
How is this compatible with the Local Government Act, the elected representatives’ need for information and the administration’s duty of political neutrality? This the administration would not answer.
To Nettavisen, Spissøy stated in May that the county council has the right to see the case documents, because the mandate includes safeguarding the interests of the inhabitants.
– Information subject to a duty of confidentiality may be given to elected representatives when it is necessary for the performance of their office, but they then become bound by the duty of confidentiality themselves. The right of access requires that the group leaders are given access to the relevant documents that formed the basis of the case, says Spissøy, who is not herself a party to the case.
Her conclusion was that politicians are not subject to instructions from the county administration, and that the county director’s assessment violates the Local Government Act.
She states that she first became aware of the complaint when it was dismissed, and that the dismissal has been appealed, presumably the reason for dismissal. Document has not succeeded in making contact with her today.
An elected representative carries out her mandate in accordance with the Local Government Act and is reported to the police by the county bureaucracy! The county council’s representatives are warned by the chief legal officer and incoming County Director against reading the case! The county council is denied access to the details surrounding the false death certificate!
NRK publishes a one-sided post with a ridiculous picture of the county council representative!
The picture Spissøy refers to is in this article.
She concludes the post as follows:
Yes, this probably says everything about why we have increasing political contempt, great dissatisfaction with the bureaucracy, scepticism towards the police and the justice system and steadily less confidence in NRK and other editor-controlled media.
We fly the flag at half-mast every Sunday, in mourning over the state of affairs in our beautiful country …