Supervision of appointments to office

The Government appoints Permanent Secretaries and Directors General to the ministries and a large share of the heads of the agencies operating under the ministries. The Government also appoints other public officials in executive positions and particularly many public officials in senior expert positions in ministries. The President of the Republic appoints, among others, judges and Defence Forces officers, and appoints heads of foreign missions.

The Chancellor of Justice inspects in advance the documents concerning the appointments to be processed at the government plenary session and at the presidential session. The Chancellor of Justice supervises other appointments afterwards mainly based on complaints.

The supervision of appointments to office involves reviewing the lawfulness of the procedure for filling the public office and the grounds for the proposal for the appointment. The supervision includes reviewing the following issues:

• the public office has been open for public application
• the qualification requirements for the public office are followed
• applicants are compared equally and without discrimination
• the appointment is justified by objective factors relevant to the duties of the public office
• discretion is exercised appropriately from the perspective of the performance of the duties and it is not exceeded.

The Chancellor of Justice does not take a position on which of the top candidates should be appointed.

The rapporteur presenting the appointment is responsible for ensuring that the appointment has been lawfully prepared and justified with the correct information. The party making the appointment is responsible for the lawfulness of the decision. The rapporteur is also responsible for the lawfulness of the decision, unless they have expressed disagreement with the decision.