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Access to justice and the right to a fair trial are basic human rights explicitly stipulated in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as well as in the Swedish constitution. The fundamental meaning of these rights is that everyone should have an effective option for bringing their case to a court governed by the rule of law. Counsel fees and other process-costs may constitute a significant barrier to entry for an individual bringing his or her case to the court. Consequently, such cost-related barriers may deprive individuals of their right to a fair trial in practice. This fact is recognised in many legislations through legal aid provisions, reimbursement rules or similar mechanisms with the common purpose of eliminating, or at least lowering, the cost-barrier in question for the individual. Tax cases are often complex, and the average taxpayer would typically need to obtain legal counsel to vindicate his or her rights in a dispute with the tax authority. The taxpayer’s costs for such vindication may consequently be high. Swedish legislation stipulates that such costs under certain circumstances can be reimbursed by the state. In practice, however, the taxpayer seldom gets reimbursed for the full cost or even the majority of the cost, regardless of the outcome of the case. Even if the taxpayer wins the court case against the tax authority, it is not unusual that the taxpayer gets no reimbursement at all. This thesis analyses the Swedish reimbursement model for process-costs in tax cases and how it relates to the right to a fair trial. The question is whether the relevant legislation, and/or the courts’ application of it, risks being in breach of the ECHR’s and/or the Swedish constitution’s stipulated right to a fair trial. This thesis argues that it does; not as a result of the legislation itself, but because of the courts’ application of it. The risk of violating the right to a fair trial correlates primarily with two factors. These are what are at stake for the taxpayer (typically the disputed tax amount) and the complexity of the legal issues involved in the case. Trigger points for when the respective factor comes into play from a human rights perspective are analysed and discussed in the thesis. When they do, the absence of real possibilities of reimbursement of process-costs in a given tax case may constitute an unacceptable barrier for the individual to access justice and get a fair trial.

I uppsatsen har Anom och Operation Trojan Shield analyserats utifrån frågeställning­arna hur domstolarna har hanterat bevisningen som tillkommit genom insatsen, vilka bevisförbud som finns att tillgå i svensk rätt, om de bör tillämpas under förevarande omständigheter samt slutligen om några förändringar av bevisreglerna är påkallade med hänsyn till vad som framkommit i uppsatsen i övrigt. Operation Trojan Shield var en insats som skulle hjälpa de brottsbekämpande myndigheterna att lagföra företrädare för den grova organiserade brottsligheten. Anom var emellertid inte den första krypterade kommunikationstjänsten som domstolarna fick på sitt bord. Föregångaren EncroChat hade redan hanterats av underrätterna. Det föreligger dock väsentliga skillnader i de olika kommunikationstjänsterna uppkomstsätt, vilket borde fått genomslag i domstolarnas hantering. Insatsen Operation Trojan Shield har karaktär av brottsprovokation, eftersom Anom-enheterna började användas i samband med att andra krypterade kommunikationstjänster försvann från marknaden. Amerikanska brottsbekämpande myndigheter har upprättat och marknadsfört tjänsten på ett sätt som väckt en brottslig vilja, åtminstone hos högnivådistributörerna inom nätverksbrottsligheten. Genom att svenska domstolar sedan har tillämpat samma bevisrättsliga regler på Anom-material som EncroChat-material har resultatet varit otillfredsställande i relation till rätten till rättvis rättegång.