District Prosecutor closes investigation involving the Sámi Parliament elections of 2023 – The Sámi Parliament Election Committee and Executive Board had acceptable grounds for their decisions
On 7 May 2025, the District Prosecutor of Northern Finland issued a decision stating that the preliminary investigation in the cases involving the Sámi Parliament elections of 2023 will be closed. The investigation will be closed for both the case of suspected discrimination and the case of suspected neglect of official duties. The Prosecutor deems the Sámi Parliament Election Committee and the Executive Board to have had acceptable grounds for their decisions, and that there is no cause to suspect criminal offence.
Photo: Ville Fofonoff
Based on findings by the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland and United Nations committees taken into account, the Prosecutor has deemed the Sámi Parliament Election Committee and Executive Board to have had acceptable grounds for their decisions.
– Our own view has consistently been that the allegations of the Sámi Parliament Election Committee and Executive Board having engaged in discrimination are unfounded. The Prosecutor’s decision was anticipated and indicates that no discrimination nor neglect of official duties has happened, says Acting President Tuomas Aslak Juuso.
In the decision, the Prosecutor deems the decisions made by the Sámi Parliament Election Committee and Executive Board to be duly justified and made with a wide range of relevant rules of law taken into consideration.
– I hope that the Prosecutor’s decision will put an end to the smear campaign against the Sámi Parliament’s activities, and to the accusations that decisions at Sámi Parliament are made arbitrarily. In the public discourse, some have aimed to create negative perceptions about what we do at the Sámi Parliament, and now is the time to rectify those perceptions, Juuso continues.
The process has been exhausting and has taken a heavy toll on the community. Juuso hopes that the Sámi Parliament will now be left to its regular responsibilities.
As per the Prosecutor’s decision, the preliminary investigation in this matter will be closed as the Prosecutor declines to proceed with the prosecution, and no private or public interest of importance demands the continuation of the investigation and subsequent prosecution. The decision states that based on the preliminary investigation measures already carried out, it is very likely that the case for prosecution is not supported by probable cause.
The case originated when the police suspected the Sámi Parliament Election Committee and the members of the 2020–23 Executive Board of neglecting their official duties and engaging in discrimination by omitting 63 individuals from the electoral roll for the Sámi Parliament elections of 2023, contrary to rulings issued by the Supreme Administrative Court. The basis of this suspicion of illegal discrimination was that these 63 individuals were not able to vote nor run as candidates in the Sámi Parliament elections of 2023.
In 2019 and 2022, treaty bodies of the United Nations issued Finland three condemnatory decisions. The United Nations Human Rights Committee and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) obligated Finland to amend the Act on the Sámi Parliament so that it will respect the right of the Sámi to self-determination. The Act on the Sámi Parliament is currently processed by the Finnish Constitutional Law Committee.
Press release from the Prosecutor (in Finnish): Preliminary investigation regarding Sámi Parliament elections has been closed (12 May 2025)
Additional information:
Tuomas Aslak Juuso
Acting President
+358 (0)40 687 3394
tuomas.juuso@samediggi.fi
Leo Aikio
I Vice President
+358 (0)40 621 6505
leo.aikio@samediggi.fi
