The nature of the Swedish human rights legislation has undergone a significant transformation over the past decades. Whereas there was an overall consensus during the 20th century that the regulation and interpretation of human rights was best left to parliament, judicial review and strategic litigation has since come to play an ever larger role within the Swedish legal system. Throughout the 20th century the political majority viewed constitutional human rights as protection against potential anti democratic forces that were to come into play in times of crises. They were not primarily intended to be invoked to question regular legislation. A political majority considered human rights legislations to be too vague to hinder anything but blatant human rights violations, and thus their specific contents were deemed too political to be determined by anyone but the popularly elected parliament. Over the past 30 years, this attitude has shifted. The development of Swedish law has resulted in the view that even democratic parliaments are able to violate human rights in ordinary legislation. As such, the power to interpret and determine the scope of the human rights legislation has shifted from parliament to adjudicative organs through judicial review. At the same time, political activism through strategic litigation has grown in popularity and achieved significant legal changes. In summary, the modern human rights legislation has resulted in a redistribution of political power that is in stark contrast to what was envisioned when the Swedish constitutional rights were first developed. In this study, I examine the legal developments that have enabled the modern human rights legislation in order to create an understanding of its role within the Swedish democracy, over time and today. Through legislation, its legislative history, and court practice I chart and analyze the significant events surrounding the human rights legislation in the Swedish constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

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The legal conception and methodology developed by the Historical School of Jurisprudence had a strong impact on Swedish legal scholars in the 19th century, influencing the legal faculties at the universities as well as the drafting of private law legislation. In his seminal work System des heutigen römischen Rechts Friedrich Carl von Savigny, the figurehead of the Historical School, used the terms legal relations and legal institutions as core concepts, distinguishing between the natural institutions of family law and the artificial institutions of private law. These terms were used in a similar capacity to how Friedrich Julius Stahl, a decade earlier, had used them in his work on legal philosophy, Die Philosophie des Rechts nach geschichtlicher Ansicht. The distinction between natural and artificial institutions has been criticized as an unhistorical abstraction and as a necessary precondition for the subsequent development of conceptual jurisprudence. This thesis investigates the relation between natural and artificial institutions, as well as the function and meaning of the artificial institutions in the legal system and the reasoning of the courts. The thesis proposes a spectrum ranging from natural to artificial as an analytical framework. Through a historical and dogmatic analysis of three legal institutions different aspects of the artificial character of legal institutions are presented. The analysis of the legal institution of stoppage in transitu shows that a natural institution based on customary law over time can evolve into an artificial institution, far removed from the concrete circumstances in which it developed. This is the case with stoppage in transitu in Swedish law. The analysis of the legal institution of culpa in contrahendo shows that it originated in a legal remedy theorized by Rudolf von Jhering and gained authority through court practice over time until it was codified in German law. By contrast, the use of culpa in contrahendo in Swedish law has declined over time and been functionally replaced by a general principle of good faith. Though the institution has not been made obsolete, it is now generally regarded as a specific expression of the good faith principle. The analysis of the legal institution of unjust enrichment shows that in contrast to the continental civil law systems, Nordic and Swedish legal scholars have generally been firmly opposed and highly critical of its application. There are provisions stipulating compensation based on unjust enrichment in several different laws and it has been used in the reasoning of the Supreme Court, but the prevailing opinion among legal scholars has been that such an institution doesn’t exist in Swedish law. In the last thirty years, essentially a new generation of legal scholars has acknowledged the existence of unjust enrichment in Swedish law. From the results of the historical analysis artificial institutions can be understood as abstract systematic units with a core normative content expressed in technical-legal language. Their function in the legal system is to bridge the gap between fundamental ethic norms inherent in the system and individual legal relations for which no rule exists. The natural or artificial character of institutions can only be determined in relative terms, and in the evolution of a specific legal institution this character is not fixed, but subject to gradual change.  In the reasoning of the court the analyzed artificial institutions are mainly used as a vehicle for legal analogies or as an argument to determine if a proposed analogy is justified. These arguments are routinely based on legal doctrine and prior court praxis, and only occasionally cites preparatory works or legislation. In the reasoning of the court, invoking artificial institutions are a means of solving hard cases by creating new rules which are formally coherent.

<p>At the turn of the century 18/1900 Swedish law looked upon young people as being adults at about the age of 15. At 15, the young person had left school, had his first employment and provided for himself and also had been confirmed to full membership of the Swedish State Church. Thus he was to be considered an adult and responsible for his actions. Parents, society/school and Church had done what was expected of them and now it was up to the 15-years old to live according to the laws and to be punished if the laws were broken. Over the following hundred years, at the time of the millennium, Swedish society changed a lot. So the laws did not and still a young person of 15 is considered an adult in the eye of the Swedish law. This paper looks upon the ideas that the law was based on at the turn of the century 18/1900 and the ideas that are put forward by Swedish courts today. The law has not changed, but today Swedish young people leave school between the ages of 19-25, and find their first employment even later. The paper gives the historical background and looks at the underlying ideas of adulthood. How people think and what is considered being important in defining aduldthood has not changed much over those hundred years. In deciding if a person could pass as an adult, the Swedish law still use the same premisses today as it did a hundred years ago. As these premissies and ideas are the same, though society has changed, you can’t today be considered an adult until in your twenties.</p>

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This essay focuses on crime history and gender. It is a study of female crimes in the beginning of the 19th century in a small parish (Askeryd Socken) in Småland in the south part of Sweden. The method I have used is to study the records of Municipal Court regarding the citizens of the parish of Askeryd. I have then tried to find out whether the female offenders have been treated different than the male offenders, if there is a certain kind of gender-related crimes and in those cases where comparison is possible, I have examined if the females are treated in a lighter way. (”female discount”), or if they were treated as mentally unstable.The essay shows that in this particular parish during the years 1825 to 1830, female offenders were not treated in a lighter manner. There were certain gender-related crimes, which women were more exposed to than men, but women offenders were not treated as mentally disturbed.

At the turn of the century 18/1900 Swedish law looked upon young people as being adults at about the age of 15. At 15, the young person had left school, had his first employment and provided for himself and also had been confirmed to full membership of the Swedish State Church. Thus he was to be considered an adult and responsible for his actions. Parents, society/school and Church had done what was expected of them and now it was up to the 15-years old to live according to the laws and to be punished if the laws were broken. Over the following hundred years, at the time of the millennium, Swedish society changed a lot. So the laws did not and still a young person of 15 is considered an adult in the eye of the Swedish law. This paper looks upon the ideas that the law was based on at the turn of the century 18/1900 and the ideas that are put forward by Swedish courts today. The law has not changed, but today Swedish young people leave school between the ages of 19-25, and find their first employment even later. The paper gives the historical background and looks at the underlying ideas of adulthood. How people think and what is considered being important in defining aduldthood has not changed much over those hundred years. In deciding if a person could pass as an adult, the Swedish law still use the same premisses today as it did a hundred years ago. As these premissies and ideas are the same, though society has changed, you can’t today be considered an adult until in your twenties.

No description available.