A single complainant is tying up the courts with a stream of challenges over teacher appointments.
Hufvudstadsbladet explores how a lone complainant is clogging up Helsinki Administrative Court in an attempt to derail teacher appointments in the capital area.
One individual has lodged nearly 100 formal complaints over teacher appointments in Espoo and Helsinki.
The steady influx over the past three years has begun to burden the system, the paper explains, as each case gets carefully examined.
Most dismissed rulings have been escalated to the Supreme Administrative Court, further prolonging the legal process.
“In Finland, there is no law addressing individuals who file complaints frequently,” administrative court judge Tuula Pääkkönen told HBL.
Fazer sweetens portfolio
Finnish confectionery giant Fazer is acquiring a Swedish competitor, Aroma, reports Kauppalehti.
Aroma is a Swedish sweets producer known for its raspberry and liquorice boat-shaped candies and employs around 100 people.
The company has signalled that it will continue to pursue further acquisitions.
Last year, the government cancelled plans to raise Finland’s value-added tax (VAT) on sweets and chocolate from 14 to 25.5 percent.
The sweets VAT hike plan became known as the ‘Fazer tax’ because would have affected them the most. In response, the company announced plans to suspend a decision on plans to build a 750-million-euro factory in Lahti.
However, last summer the company announced that the Lahti factory project was going ahead.
Archive reveals Roma expulsion
An archive clipping in Helsingin Sanomat‘s ’50 years ago today’ section reminded readers that discrimination against the Roma was once widely normalised in Finland.
The article from 1976 details how the interior ministry moved quickly to expel a group of 40 French Roma, ordering their return to Sweden after spending just four days in Finland.
Unauthorised employment was cited as the primary reason for their expulsion. According to officials, some members of the group had undertaken work without the needed permits.
Eila Kännö, head of what was the ‘foreigner office’ at the time, declined to comment in detail on the case, stating only that such groups tend to cause “nothing but trouble”.
Decades later, in 2021, Yle reported that the Helsinki Police Department had for years engaged in practices that suggest ethnic profiling. The department is said to have recorded the movements of members of the Finnish Roma community in the capital region, including details about their vehicles and social contacts.
