Ordinance
on Freedom of Information in the Administration
(Freedom of Information Ordinance, FoIO)

(Art. 12 FoIA)

¹Where a doc­u­ment has been pre­pared by more than one au­thor­ity, the primary au­thor­ity shall be com­pet­ent to take a de­cision.

² Where the ap­plic­a­tion for ac­cess cov­ers sev­er­al doc­u­ments con­cern­ing the same mat­ter, and which were is­sued or re­ceived by dif­fer­ent au­thor­it­ies sub­ject to the Free­dom of In­form­a­tion Act, the au­thor­ity in charge of the mat­ter is com­pet­ent to take a de­cision.

³ Where sev­er­al au­thor­it­ies are in charge of the mat­ter, they shall jointly de­term­ine which au­thor­ity is com­pet­ent to de­cide. The lat­ter shall take a de­cision with re­gard to the ap­plic­a­tion for ac­cess, in con­sulta­tion with the oth­er au­thor­it­ies.

⁴ Where an au­thor­ity has pre­pared a doc­u­ment at the re­quest of an­oth­er au­thor­ity, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity must con­sult the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity pri­or to tak­ing a de­cision.

⁵ Where an ap­plic­a­tion for ac­cess con­cerns a clas­si­fied doc­u­ment, the com­pet­ency and the pro­ced­ure is gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions on the pro­tec­tion of in­form­a­tion and clas­si­fied doc­u­ments. The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall con­sider wheth­er the doc­u­ment may be de­clas­si­fied.