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Jane Reichel

About me

I am a professor in administrative law. I have been at the faculty since 2018 and before that I was a professor of administrative law at the Faculty of Law, Uppsala University.

Research and funding

My research focuses on what globalization in general and Europeanisation in particular mean for the administration, its role within the state and in relation to the EU and other organizations. Issues of interest concern how networks of authorities acting beyond the state are governed and controlled, how administrative law ideals of efficient, transparent and legally secure decision-making processes are achieved beyond the nation state and how protection of personal data can be guaranteed. During the period 2011 - 2018, I was involved in various EU projects (FP7 and Horizon 2020) linked to medical research and biobanks, BBMRI, BiobankCloud and BiobankBridgeAfrica. In the latter, I was work package leader for the WP ethics and law. I have since participated as a member of the Advisory Boards for the Horizon 2020 project DeSIEM, on data protection and social media, as well as an ongoing project funded by the European Law Institute on artificial intelligence and public administration.

I am currently participating in two European administrative law projects, "'Common frame of reference' of the pan-European general principles of good administration of the Council of Europe" and "The Principle of Legality and the Intensity of its Binding Force in European Administrative Laws ”. The research is financed via my professorship. I also participate in the comparative project Constitutional Condition of the Welfare State, funded by STINT, where Swedish and South Korean experiences are compared. I regularly participate in the international networks Privacy Law Forum and Administrative Law Discussion Forum

I am associated with the Center for Research Ethics & Bioethics, Uppsala University

Teaching

 I teach administrative law and to some extent EU law, at a basic and advanced level.

Academic background

I defended my thesis God förvaltning i EU och i Sverige [Good administration in the EU and in Sweden] in 2006 at Stockholm University, within European integration law. I was appointed associate professor at Stockholm University in 2009, within Public law. In 2009, I started working at the Department of Law at Uppsala University, initially as a research assistant in European law, then as a senior lecturer in Administrative law. I was promoted to professor in the same subject in 2014. During my time in Uppsala, I was also attached part-time to the Center for Research Ethics & Bioethics. In 2018, I was recruited as a professor of Administrative law at Stockholm University.

Academic missions of trust

Member of Supervisory Board at The Swedish Institute for Euopean Policy Studies (Sieps) Insight Council since 2019

Member of Karolinska Institutet's Ethics Council, since 2018

Editor and publisher of Förvaltningsrättslig tidskrift [Administrative Law Review], since 2014

Vice Dean and Chairman of the Research Committee at the Faculty of Law, Uppsala University, 2014-2018

Member and deputy member of the Faculty Board, at the Faculty of Law, Uppsala University, 2009-2018

 

Outreach

I regularly teach at Public Authorities.

 

 

Research projects

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • The GDPR and Processing of Personal Data for Research Purposes

    2021. Jane Reichel. European Public Law 27 (1), 167-190

    Article

    Case law regularly includes personal data on identifiable persons, often of a rather sensitive nature. This makes the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) relevant. However, the processing of personal data in case law has until recently not been questioned from the point of view of data protection of the individuals concerned. The Court of Justice of the European Union has taken steps ensure such protection for individuals appearing before the courts. Sweden has chosen another path. As transparency is a highly treasured in Sweden, including transparency in the judiciary, restricting access to the full verdict is sensitive. Instead, the processing of personal data has been restricted in a certain areas, such as research. In order to fulfill the requirements for an ‘appropriate safeguard’ under Article 89 GDPR, an ethical approval is needed for all research on specific categories of sensitive personal data, with no exception for publicly-available official documents like case law. The question posed is how the interest in protection of personal data retrieved from case law can be reconciled with the interest in transparency of the judicial process. It is concluded that even though requirements for an ethical approval of legal research hardly can be seen as a relevant ‘appropriate safeguard’, it cannot be denied that there is a legitimate interest of identifiable persons in case law to have their rights in personal data at least considered. Courts should therefore be stronger in elucidating when and why transparency is of overriding importance, and when and why data protection and the interest of secrecy should prevail.

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  • GDPR and Biobanking

    2021. Santa Slokenberga, Olga Tzortzatou, Jane Reichel.

    Book (ed)

    This open access book focuses on the discrepancies in biobank research regulations that are among the most significant hurdles to effective research collaboration. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has established stringent requirements for the processing of health and genetic data, while simultaneously allowing considerable multi-level exceptions for the purposes of scientific research. In addition to directly applicable exceptions, the GDPR places the regulatory responsibility for further defining how the Member States strike a balance between the individuals' rights and the public interest in research within their national legal orders. Since Member States' approaches to the trade-off between data subjects' rights on the one hand, and appropriate safeguards on the other, differ according to their ethical and legal traditions, their data protection requirements for research also differ considerably.

    This study takes a comprehensive approach to determine how the GDPR affects regulatory regimes on the use of personal data in biobanking research, with a particular focus on the balance between individuals' rights, public interest and scientific research. In this regard, it has two main goals: first, to scrutinize the GDPR research regime, its objective and constitutive elements, the impact it has on biobanking, and its role in a changing EU landscape post-Brexit; and second, to examine how various exceptions have been operationalized nationally, and what challenges and opportunities this diversification entails. The book not only captures the complexity GDPR creates for biobanking, but also sheds light on various approaches to tackling the corresponding challenges. It offers the first comprehensive analysis of GDPR for biobanking, and the most up-to-date overview of the national biobank regulatory frameworks in Europe.

    Read more about GDPR and Biobanking

  • Swedish Law on Personal Data in Biobank Research

    2021. Magnus Stenbeck, Sonja Eaker Fält, Jane Reichel. GDPR and Biobanking, 379-394

    Chapter

    This chapter describes the regulatory and organisational infrastructure of biobank research in Sweden, and how the introduction of the GDPR affects the possibilities to use biobank material in future research. The Swedish legislator has chosen a rather minimalistic approach in relation to the research exception in Article 89 GDPR and has only enacted limited general exceptions to the data protection rules. This may be partly explained by the comprehensive right to public access to official documents which gives researchers vast access to information held in registries, albeit conditioned on abiding by secrecy and confidentiality rules. The Swedish legislation implementing the GDPR includes a general exception from the data protection rules in relation to the right to access to official documents, which researchers also benefit from. However, confidentiality rules for different categories of information differ between sectors, which hinders an effective use of the registries in research. The regulatory regime for using biobank and registry data in Sweden thus involves both data protection and secrecy rules, which makes the legal landscape permissible but complex. The operationalisation of the research exception in Article 89 GDPR is analysed against this background. Special attention is given to the possibility to link personal information derived from biobanks with personal information from other data sources, including large national population based statistical registries as well as information from national clinical registers.

    Read more about Swedish Law on Personal Data in Biobank Research

  • Allocation of Regulatory Responsibilities

    2021. Jane Reichel. GDPR and Biobanking, 421-434

    Chapter

    In this chapter, an analysis is undertaken of the division of legislative power in the space created by the GDPR, regarding the balancing of individual rights, the public interest and biobank research. The legislative competences of the EU, international obligations within bioethics, and the regulatory space left for Member States are all examined. The conclusion of the chapter is that in spite of the aim of the GDPR to further legal harmonisation, it is more likely that unity will be brought about through administrative cooperation and soft law tools.

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  • Openness and Transparency

    2020. Jane Reichel. The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Administrative Law, 935-956

    Chapter

    This chapter considers how the increased interest in access to official documents on the public international law level relates to the challenges posed to domestic laws with re­ spect to transparency. It asks if international developments of greater access can com­ pensate for the loss of transparency at the national level brought about by the de-nation­ alization of domestic law, and if so, how. Swedish domestic law is chosen as the case ex­ ample here. The chapter provides an introductory overview of openness and transparency as a constitutional and administrative value in Sweden. Next, it examines openness and transparency in a global context. Transparency as a human right and also as an ideal for international organizations is then addressed. The chapter concludes with a comparative analysis.

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  • The Pan-European General Principles of Good Administration in Sweden - Undeniable but Partial Vehicles of Change

    2020. Jane Reichel. Good Administraion and the Council of Europe, 257-274

    Chapter

    It is today evident that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has had a fundamental impact on the Swedish legal order as a whole, including constitutional and administrative law. Perhaps the most important change is the understanding of individual rights in the Swedish legal order. Swedish courts are today more frequently and with greater self-esteem upholding fundamental rights based in the Swedish constitution, the ECHR and EU law. This development has, however, been neither linear nor without friction. With regard to general administrative law the impact can be described as patchy. Some areas have undergone radical changes, where longstanding traditions of Swedish administrative law have been abandoned, whereas other areas have remained more or less intact. The main conclusion of this chapter is thus that the impact of the ECHR and other Council of Europe (CoE) instruments has been undeniable but partial, and to a certain extent hidden.

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  • Förvaltning och EU:s datasskydd

    2020. Jane Reichel, Anna-Sara Lind. Den svenska förvaltningsmodellen, 258-285

    Chapter

    I fokus för detta bidrag står den förvaltningsrättsliga regleringen av EU:s dataskydd, vilken för medlemsstaternas del huvudsakligen finns i dataskyddsdirektivet. En av de största utmaningarna i sammanhanget är den genuint gränslösa hanteringen av personuppgifter på Internet. Efterfrågan på gränsöverskridande förvaltningslösningar är därför stort. Den föreslagna uppgiftsskyddsförordningen, som är tänkt att ersätta dataskyddsdirektivet, innehåller flera mekanismer avsedda att länka ihop medlemsstaternas förvaltningsmyndigheter och därmed underlätta handläggning av ärenden av gränsöverskridande karaktär. Frågan som ställs här är hur det påverkar de svenska förvaltningsmyndigheternas roll och deras relation till regeringen och till riksdagen. Hur påverkas regeringens förutsättningar att styra förvaltningsmyndigheterna, när dessa agerar utanför landets gränser?  Hur påverkas riksdagens möjlighet att kontrollera regeringen och i förlängningen förvaltningen? Artikeln avslutas med en kortare diskussion om alternativa modeller för styrning och kontroll inom den europeiska sammansatta förvaltningen.

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  • What is it the public has a right to know? The right to privacy for public officials and the right of access to official documents – European and Swedish perspectives

    2020. Jane Reichel. Comparative Privacy and Defamation, 112-129

    Chapter

    When a person acts as an official in the public domain, the person is generally viewed differently than a person acting in the private domain. An official does not act in a private capacity, but as a spokesperson or a tool for the public organ. How does the official as a person fit into this picture? The question asked in this chapter is what the public has a right to know in relation to official documents containing personal data of an official. While transparency can shed light on the internal functioning of a public organ, enabling a control that matters are handled correctly, objectively and impartially, public documents may also include private information on public officials. A comparison is made on how the European Convention on Human Rights, EU law and Swedish law balance the right to privacy of officials with the right to access of official documents.

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  • Sanctions Against Individuals and the Rule of Law

    2020. Jane Reichel. The European Union and the Return of the Nation State, 191-217

    Chapter

    This chapter takes the question of how to guarantee the rule of law within the scope of application of Union law. The rule of law in this context requires, according to the author, that the exercise of public power is constrained and possible to hold accountable through principles of legality and legal certainty, as well as constitutional guarantees for the protection of fundamental rights. The overarching question addressed in the chapter is this: who is it—the Union or the member states—that ultimately guarantees the rule of law and the protection of fundamental rights when sanctions against individuals are decided within the ambit of European Union (EU) law? Can the member states actually rely on the EU to guarantee that decisions which may subject individuals to sanctions are made on a secure basis?

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  • EU data transfer rules and African legal realities

    2019. Santa Slokenberga (et al.).

    Article

    Key Points

    • To effectively collaborate in biobanking and build capacity in low and middle-income countries, data transfer from European Union (EU) Member States to states in Africa is crucial.

    • Although under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) avenues for data transfer exist, the ones feasible for transcontinental data exchange for biobank research rely on EU enforcement which in essence means limited oversight possibilities and, consequently, considerable risks to the EU data subject’s privacy.

    • To ensure effective data protection for data subjects in biobanking, raising the data protection bar in data recipient countries is crucial. Although Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda have taken considerable steps towards developing data protection frameworks, only that of South Africa and Nigeria’s Protection of Personal Information Bill seem to be such to meet the protection level set out by the GDPR. The legislative initiatives in Kenya and Uganda require revisions to ensure that protection of privacy is not undermined when data are being sent to these countries.

    • Currently, considerable responsibility is placed in the hands of the legislatures in the countries of concern—and notably in Kenya, and Uganda—to set foundations for ending research and research integrity-harming practices. In Nigeria, these foundations are defined in the Protection of Personal Information Bill, but not adopted yet. South Africa, however, has taken a big step towards building routes for genuine biobank capacity-building in the country and collaboration in that regard.

    Read more about EU data transfer rules and African legal realities

  • The Relationship Between Damages and Administrative Fines in the EU General Data Protection Regulation

    2019. Johanna Chamberlain, Jane Reichel.

    Report

    Two purposes of the GDPR are to provide effective remedies for ensuring extensive personal data rights and to change practices and policies of controllers and processors so that they become more aware of privacy protection. Article 58 GDPR lays down the investigative and corrective powers of the national supervisory authorities, such as issuing warnings or imposing new administrative fines. Article 79 GDPR states that every data subject whose rights according to the regulation have been infringed shall have access to an effective remedy. The two measures in focus here are those with the largest economic impact: Article 82 on damages and Article 83 on administrative fines. These articles target different areas and subjects – while the first has a compensatory purpose and is designed for use by individuals, the second has a preventive character and is implemented by Data Protection Authorities vis-á-vis controllers and processors. Considering these two profiles, an interesting question arises: Why are the provisions of Article 83 for imposing fines on companies and organisations so detailed, while the wording of Article 82 and hence the liability for controllers and processors is open to interpretation? What does this difference lead to in the application of the regulation, and more precisely, is it likely that the development in regards to administrative fines could spill over to the application of rules on damages?

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  • The rule of law in the twilight zone

    2019. Jane Reichel. Administrative Law, Administrative Structures and Administrative Decisionmaking

    Chapter

    In this article, I focus on the area of administrative sanctions within the European composite administration. Many pieces of secondary EU law contain requirements that member states are to provide effective deterrent measures in order to uphold respect for the material EU law provisions, but leave to the member states to apply their own rules on administrative sanctions. The practice of referring questions of sanctions to national law is a consequence of the reluctance displayed by the member states to hand over their sanctioning powers to the EU.Underthe case law of the European Court of Human Rights, administrative sanctions can on certain conditions be defined as criminal charges according to Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights, and must be handled accordingly. TheCourt of Justice of the European Union, CJEU, has followed thiscase law.The principle of legality is central in relation to criminal charges and penalties, a notion that is also acknowledged in Article 49 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EU Charter). By leaving the matter of regulating administrative sanctions to the member states, the sanctions can be applied under one comprehensive set of rules, within the legal system of the member state. However, according to well-established case law, member states are obliged to ensure that sanctions for infringements of provisions of union law are “effective, proportionate and dissuasive”. Further, the CJEU has on several occasions held that the general principles of EU law, as well as the EU Charter, are also applicable to national laws of sanction. In more recent secondary legislation, for example the General Data Protection Regulation, the EU has enacted rules that regulate how national laws on sanctions are to be applied. Even this area of the European composite administration is thereby becoming more integrated. 

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  • Europeiska principer för god förvaltning och 2017 års förvaltningslag

    2018. Jane Reichel. Förvaltningsrättslig Tidskrift (3), 423-441

    Article

    I artikeln behandlas införandet av en ny rubrik om ”grunderna för god förvaltning” i 2017 års FL, under vilken centrala rättsstatliga principer samt regler för service, tillgänglighet och samverkan har samlats. Principen om god förvaltning är sedan lång tid etablerad inom EU-rätten och förekommer även i dokument från Europarådet samt i viss utsträckning inom Europadomstolens praxis. I artikeln analyseras frågan hur den svenska versionen med ”grunderna för god förvaltning” förhåller sig till de europeiska principerna, vad gäller såväl innehåll som funktion av standard eller utkrävbar rättighet. I vad mån kan EU-domstolens senare praxis avseende tillämpningen av principen om god förvaltning på nationell nivå inverka på hur FL tolkas och tillämpas? Analysen görs mot bakgrund av de syften som reformen av FL har avsett att uppfylla, att stärka enskildas rättssäkerhet, införa ett mer heltäckande förfarande och att göra lagen mer lättillgänglig.

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