Beatrice Ask

Beatrice Ask
Minister for Justice
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 October 2006
Prime Minister	Fredrik Reinfeldt
Preceded by	Thomas Bodström
Minister for Schools
In office 4 October 1991 – 7 October 1994
Prime Minister	Carl Bildt
Preceded by	Göran Persson
Succeeded by	Ylva Johansson
Member of the Swedish Riksdag for Stockholm Municipality
Incumbent
Assumed office 4 October 1988
Personal details
Born	Eva Carin Beatrice Ask (1956-04-20) 20 April 1956 Sveg, Sweden
Political party	Moderate Party
Occupation	Politician
Religion	Church of Sweden

Eva Carin Beatrice Ask (born 20 April 1956) is a Swedish politician and a member of the Moderate Party. She has been a member of the Swedish Riksdag for Stockholm Municipality since 1988 and served as Minister for Schools from 1991 to 1994. She has served as Sweden's Minister for Justice since 2006.

Biography

Ask was born in Sveg, Jämtland County. She earned a high school diploma in Akron, Ohio, United States, in 1974, and finished her upper secondary school in Sweden in 1976.^[1] From 1978 to 1979 she studied international economics at Uppsala University but never graduated.^[1] Instead she began working for the Moderate Party and the Moderate Youth League, before being elected the first female chairman of the youth league in 1984. She was re-elected in 1986 and served a second term until 1988, when she was elected city commissioner with responsibility for schools (Swedish: skolborgarråd) in the city council of Stockholm.

Following the 1991 election, after which Carl Bildt became Prime Minister, Ask was appointed Minister for Schools and Adult Education in the new cabinet. Together with Per Unckel, Minister for Education, she took part in shaking the very foundation of the Swedish education system. Among other things, education vouchers were introduced which allowed children to choose independent schools without paying any fees.

Since the loss in the 1994 election, Ask has served as party spokesman of several issues. From 1994 to 2006 she was member of the Swedish parliament.

Following the 2006 election, after which Fredrik Reinfeldt became Prime Minister, Ask was appointed Minister for Justice in the new cabinet. Historically, she is one of very few non-jurists to hold the post of Minister for Justice in Sweden.

She has received much criticism in her role as a Minister of Justice, most notably for her part in the FRA law as well as her proposal to send lavender-colored envelopes to suspected purchasers of sexual services, with the head of the Swedish Bar Association Anne Ramberg calling the latter "a non acceptable outlook on mankind. It is a return to medieval times". In response to the Swedish Police introduction of racial profiling and indiscriminate searches, she has caused much embarrassment to an erstwhile liberal country by implying that the victims were overly sensitive and nothing more. An open letter to this minister describing the more recent public uproar has received worldwide attention and was even carried in the New York times,^[2] written in opposition of police actions in Stockholm.

In January 2014, she was criticized for sharing a satirical website article about legalized marijuana killing scores of people in the US and tying it to her anti-drug stand as a youth politician. Her press secretary later told the Aftonbladet newspaper that the minister had all the time been aware that the article was satirical.^[3]

Personal life

Ask was formerly in a relationship with Moderate Party politician Christer G. Wennerholm, with whom she has one child. She has a second child from another relationship.^[1]

References

External links

• Beatrice Ask at the Government Offices of Sweden
• Beatrice Ask at the Parliament of Sweden (Swedish)
• Beatrice Ask at the Moderate Party (Swedish)
• Beatrice Ask (Swedish)