Aftonbladet never checked if there were any rules at all for Håkan Juholt before shouting "contribution fraud". Håkan Juholt's lawyer Hans Strandberg believes that "from a legal perspective" it is "far from clear that Juholt has broken any formal rules". The Riksdag administration apparently added a paragraph on October 10 after the apartment drive began.
And it doesn't seem to have been something they found it important to inform particularly clearly about before. The page that Aftonbladet refers to is "Travel and accommodation" at the following address: http://www.riksdagen.se/templates/R_Page____6396.aspx (This page has conveniently been deleted.)
But that particular information page was updated on October 10. And the information that was added then was precisely the paragraph about what applies to shared housing:
"The provisions are applied so that the member receives compensation for his share of the housing costs if the member lives with someone else."
Note the wording "applies". This can be interpreted as possibly emerging, not established, practice. In a cached version of the same page from June earlier this year, there is NOTHING about what applies when a member shares a home:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110611005407/http://www.riksdagen.se/templates/R_Page____6396.aspx
If the media wants to pursue lawsuits in their newspapers with more or less real information, then we are in bad shape. And who in the Riksdag tries to impeach a party chairman because he did something that was not prohibited by the rules? This threatens our democracy and legal certainty. The legal process must come first. Witch trials existed in the 1400th century in Sweden.
ETHICS UNDERSTAND EVERYONE'S RESPONSIBILITY IN EVERYTHING. THIS ALSO APPLIES TO THE MEDIA. A DRIVE HAS BEEN PERFORMED THAT IS MISSING A COUNTERPART.
PS: On October 14, the preliminary investigation is closed due to unclear regulations. No one knows today who carried out the update of the new rule on Oct 10 after the indictment and on whose behalf and why! The media's review of the correct regulations has not been ensured.
"Scrutinizing power is one thing. Acting like a clever idiot to shady forces trying to make a palace revolution in a political party is something else," writes Dan Josefsson in Aftonbladet about "Juholt exposed to yet another coup".
Aftonbladet started a drive without actually having anything on their feet, they threw the source criticism and press ethics overboard, then they started with one black headline after another!
WHEN WILL AFTONBLADET PUBLISH AN APOLOGY TO HÅKAN JUHOLT? WHEN WILL AFTONBLAD REVIEW THE MANIPULATION?
Sources:
The information about the rules seems to have been changed to smear Juholt:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/erik-berg/att-etablera-en-sanning-om-juholt-informationen-p%C3%A5-riksdagens-hemsida/10150319172810986
http://stefanolsson.nu/2011/10/12/aftonbladet-kollade-aldrig-fakta-i-juholtaffaren/
Articles on the unfounded media drive:
Aftonbladet: Juholt exposed to yet another coup
SvD Brännpunkt: The drive towards Juholt is controlled from within S
The story about Juholt's cheating is a media lie
SvD: The Riksdag changed the text of the rules afterwards
Affärsvärlden: The preliminary investigation against Juholt is closed
Good that this is being noticed. Important positions.
Good that this is raised again. Recommends that anyone who is interested reads The Party leader who stepped into the cold by Daniel Suhonen.
The most horrible thing was not what was done to Juholt, but that they instituted a law change /pretend/ secretly without it being voted on in the Riksdag just to bring down a party leader who wanted to protect the small people. A kind of coup d'état, I would say, against the rule of law in Sweden.