Police investigated the possible bribery of MPs – the end result: there is no reason to suspect the crime

Police There are two particularly exceptional suspicions of criminal offenses on last year’s crime statistics: taking a bribe as a Member of Parliament and providing a bribe to a MP.

No one in Finland has ever been convicted of these crimes. Simply recording criminal offenses last year is a rare case, as at least this decade did not happen before last year.

So what are the suspicions of the police recorded? Are MPs or MPs suspected of corruption?

The point of view of is a request for an investigation made by the leaders of the monolingual Finnish Association. It applies to Stiftelsen För Det Tvåspråkiga Finland (Bilingual Finnish Foundation).

The Foundation, which promotes bilingualism in Finland, has provided election funding to numerous candidates in several elections. It can be considered a rather significant and long -term election funding for candidates.

The request for an investigation in particular focused on election funding for the 2023 parliamentary elections.

On the basis of the request for an investigation, the Helsinki Police Department conducted a preliminary study last summer. In it, the police assess whether there is a reason to suspect the crime and the investigation.

The end result of the preliminary study was that there is no reason for the Foundation or any MP to be committed by a bribery offense. Thus, the police did not start the actual criminal investigation, even though suspected bribery ended up in the police crime statistics.

What Representatives of the Union of Union Finland claimed to have happened?

In the request for an investigation, they asked the police to investigate whether the Foundation would be committed by the Foundation and the candidates who received election funding on bribery offenses, as the Foundation requires a counter -service to promote the Foundation’s goals.

On its website, the Foundation itself says it has distributed a total of EUR 516,500 to 210 candidates in connection with the 2023 parliamentary elections. The amount went 365,500 euros for the RKP candidates and the rest to other party candidates.

The names of the supported candidates have been published on the Foundation’s website. Among many of others are the chairmen of the center, the Coalition, the Christian Democrats, the RKP and the Greens, the Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (co).

The authors of the investigation calculated that more than 60 of the candidates received by the Foundation were elected. Thus, more than one in four sitting MPs received support from it.

According to the Foundation’s own announcement, the recipient of the electoral funding must commit to working, supporting and promoting the values ​​of the Foundation, such as the fact that there are two living national languages ​​in Finland.

The authors of the request of the investigation consider that elected MPs are then committed to acting against the constitutional order for the independence of the MP.

Police Unlike the authors of the request for investigation, he saw it in his preliminary study.

Election funding is not considered a bribery in Finland, but is part of the political system. However, funding must be transparently done as required by law. If the legislation on electoral funding is circumvented, there may in some cases be a member of a MP.

According to the police report, there was no legislation in this case.

« It would seem that, based on random sampling, it would appear that the MPs listed by the advertisers in the Annex have properly reported Stiftelsen För Det Tvåspråkiga Finland SR, » the police say in the preliminary investigation decision.

In addition, according to police, the Foundation itself has published a clear and properly supported recipient.

According to police, the role of a Member of Parliament is characterized by the promotion of the objectives of different opinion groups, and the financial support given by such a group to the MP is not in itself reprehensible.