Finland's Chancellor of Justice Tuomas Pöysti ruled on Tuesday that Foreign Minister Timo Soini will face no consequences over his public anti-abortion sentiments.
Pöysti overruled two complaints he had received in connection to one of Soini's blog posts, wherein he defended the Argentine Senate's decision to scrap a proposal to make abortion legal in the country. The view was at odds with the government's official policy line.
The Chancellor of Justice announced that the complaints did not give cause for disciplinary action because Soini's post counts as an expression of political opinion. The Chancellor's ruling states that the context of the post made it clear that the text was by nature an expression of universal free speech.
The Chancellor had previously condemned Soini for participating in an anti-abortion march while on an official visit to Canada in May this year, in contravention of Finland's official stance.
In September Soini survived a confidence vote brought by four opposition parties over his public interventions in debates about abortion. In the end 100 MPs voted to reject the no-confidence motion, with 60 expressing their lack of confidence in the former Finns Party leader.