Kittilä appeal court rejects all charges in final official misconduct case

The Rovaniemi Court of Appeal has rejected all charges in the latest Kittilä official misconduct case, Yle reports.

The case concerned the appointment of Kittilä’s municipal civil engineer several years ago. Pentti Kangas, who had repeatedly served as acting civil engineer, applied for the position. He was also a supporter of Anna Mäkelä, the municipality’s unlawfully dismissed manager.

The case appears to be the last branch of the wider Kittilä affair to be heard by the Rovaniemi Court of Appeal. Issues related to Mäkelä’s dismissal have already been considered by several courts, including Finland’s Supreme Court.

The appeal court examined the case in Rovaniemi over three weeks. About 130 written pieces of evidence were presented, and 20 people were heard as witnesses or for evidentiary purposes.

District court convicted seven

Two years ago, the Lapland District Court convicted seven Kittilä decision-makers of abuse of official position and sentenced them to day fines. The district court rejected charges against two elected officials and the acting technical director.

Kittilä municipality was also a defendant in a compensation claim brought by the claimant. The municipality was ordered to pay compensation jointly with those convicted.

The appeal court ruled that the charges of abuse of official position, breach of official duty and negligent breach of official duty had to be rejected in full.

It also overturned the compensation obligations imposed on all defendants. The state was ordered to pay the defendants’ legal and litigation costs in both the district court and the appeal court proceedings.

Allegations of power group remained unproven

According to the appeal court, the charges relied heavily on the allegation that a “group in power” had operated in Kittilä municipality and that the defendants had acted according to its wishes when making decisions at meetings of the technical committee.

Prosecutor Katri Junnikkala-Heikkinen had argued that Kittilä had drawn up a list of people it wanted to remove. Prosecutors said Kangas, who applied for the civil engineer’s position, was one of them.

The appeal court said the group’s exact composition, the people who belonged to it and the ways in which it allegedly influenced the defendants remained largely unclear.

Based on the evidence presented at the main hearing, the court also found that it had not been proven beyond the required level of certainty that the claimant had been placed at a disadvantage on prohibited discriminatory grounds.

The ruling is not yet final. The parties may apply to Finland’s Supreme Court for leave to appeal.