During the past 10 years Sweden has updated its penal code for sexual crimes twice. Despite this few are convicted for the crime of rape in Sweden. As the majority of perpetrators being male, this is a problem concerning women’s rights to respect for their bodies and personal integrity. A possible explanation, and this study’s point of departure is a potential discrepancy between the intention of the law and the interpretation of the same as the Swedish legal system rests on a foundation of legal positivism. Hence focus of this study has been the motives behind the definition of rape in the law and the interpretation of the same. The purpose has been to establish the development of the rape law and its political motives, how the judicial system has interpreted the legal text in actual cases and if this is in alignment. As to explain why so few are convicted for the crime of rape and to critically examine how this affects women’s rights as well as how the interpretation of the definition of rape can be carried out in a more legally secure way for the victims. This has been done firstly by examining the states public investigations and state bills before the update of the penal codes definition of rape in 2005 and 2013. Secondly by an analysis of arguments used by the Swedish courts, mainly the district courts, in two rape convictions and three verdicts of acquittal. Arguments used by the courts have then been compared to the motives behind the legal definition of rape to see if the perceived discrepancy between the intended meaning of the law and the interpretation of the same existed. Thirdly, the judicial systems legal basis for interpretation was criticised from the two theoretical perspectives of the study; a criticism to legal positivism and a gender hierarchical perspective.   The analysis shows that the updates of the rape law are clearly morally motivated and women’s rights based. In contrast to the legal positivistic judicial system interpretations, avoiding morally based argumentation relying on the systems foundation solely. The critical investigation shows that both a the perceived gender neutral system as well as legal positivistic tradition of sidestepping moral argumentation in courts result in lack of questioning the system and how it comes to its decisions.  Hence the discrepancy between the two systems can be a part of the explanation why women’s rights are not secured in Sweden.

This study examines whether there is a wage gap between male and female ordinary judges in the Swedish legal system in the year 2021 and what some of the possible reasons may be for the existing wage gap. The study is based on data obtained from the Swedish National Courts Administration, which includes the 1 000 ordinary judges who are active in the year 2021. The data material is then analyzed using descriptive statistics as well as a bivariate regression analysis to understand if there is an existing wage gap between male and female ordinary judges. To answer the second question, the data material is analyzed using a multiple regression analysis to give us an understanding of what may be the causes of the existing wage gap. The results show that male regular judges earn an average of 1 715 SEK more a month than their female colleagues. In addition, the results of the multiple regression analysis also show that when we use the independent variables that the data material contains, there is in 93 percentage of the cases a statistically significant guaranteed wage gap of 258 SEK per month between male and female ordinary judges in the Swedish legal system.