PM's Private SMS's Published Despite Secrecy Order

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen's private text messages to his ex-girlfriend Susan Ruusunen have been published on a Swedish website. The website belongs to the editor-in-chief of a monthly newsletter, and he is now considering whether to publish the text messages in the paper's May edition. The editor-in-chief of the Finnish-language monthly newsletter Suur-Tukholma, Seppo Isotalo, says the content of the text messages comes from recent court records. This year Vanhanen faced Ruusunen in a right-to-privacy case over her kiss-and-tell book of their brief relationship. Vanhanen lost the case, but has appealed the ruling. The courts, meanwhile, ordered all the trial records, including the text messages, to be kept secret. Isotalo insists that the messages were not secret, and were widely available to the press. He says he obtained the information from the Finnish media. Vanhanen says that at this point, he will not file a separate privacy case in Sweden. On Tuesday, the chair of the Council for Mass Media, Pekka Hyvärinen, said that the publication of the text messages was unnecessary. He pointed out to the newspaper Savon Sanomat that the messages do not contain anything of national relevance. PM Defends Court Case

Vanhanen says that he is pressing his case against Ruusunen to the appeals court in order to make a point. He feels that the principle at stake is the fact that even public figures have areas of their lives protected by the right to privacy.

"This includes one-on-one conversations, correspondence and other communication," Vanhanen said at a press conference on Monday. He says that Finnish law is clear that private conversations cannot be published against the will of one of the parties.

Vanhanen hopes that the appeals court will make a decision on whether someone like a prime minister does, in fact, have a right to a private life without it becoming fodder for the press.