Anders Chydenius

The world's first freedom of information law came from a country parson in the Finnish part of the Swedish kingdom. Chydenius, a member of the Riksdag's clergy estate, chaired the committee behind the Freedom of the Press Act of 1766, which abolished political censorship and gave the public a legal right to read and print official documents. He wanted farmers and merchants in remote Ostrobothnia to see how the government spent their taxes and regulated their trade. The principle of public access to official records still underpins Swedish and Finnish government today.