Western Railway | The engineer criticized Tunni’s train and received a written notice – Deputy Ombudsman: “Infringement of freedom of speech”

Assistant Ombudsman scolds the director of land use of the city of Turku, who gave a written notice to the traffic engineer of the city of Turku. Assistant Ombudsman Mikko Series according to the written notice violated the traffic engineer’s freedom of speech, which is protected as a basic and human right.

According to the deputy ombudsman’s decision issued in early August, the director of land use who issued the notice acted in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Constitution.

In April of last year, a traffic engineer shared another person’s blog post about the Turku hourly train project on the messaging service Twitter (now X).

“A blog worth reading. It shouldn’t be worth building a one-hour train. Instead of infrastructure-focused mega-plans, train traffic in Finland should be developed much more passenger-oriented,” the transport engineer wrote in connection with the article he shared.

The Turku hourly train project is now known as Länsirata. It is a planned traffic connection that, when realized, will replace the current Helsinki-Turku train line that runs through Karja. The billion-dollar project has recently faced headwinds.

Town’s the director of land use called the traffic engineer to a hearing about the message in May. The director of land use was going to give the traffic engineer a written warning.

After the hearing and the engineer’s written response, the director of land use decided to issue a milder written warning instead of a written warning.

In the note, the traffic engineer was asked to avoid commenting against the city’s goals in matters related to his field.

The traffic engineer complained about the notice he received to the ombudsman.

According to the City of Turku, the notice received by the complainant was based on a breach of his loyalty obligation.

According to the Employment Contracts Act, the employee must be factual in his public communication about the employer and refrain from criticizing the employer within the limits of appropriateness

The city emphasized that the one-hour train is the city’s top strategic project, and according to the city, traffic planning and traffic planning engineers should promote the project.

According to the deputy ombudsman, the traffic engineer’s published article presented a critical view of a socially significant project.

According to the decision, the writing was not incorrect and its publication did not harm the employer.

HS did not reach the director of land use of the city of Turku on Friday Jyrki Lappi to comment on the deputy ombudsman’s decision.