In advance of his “summer speech,” Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson has sent 10 suggestions to combat crime that the Moderate Party is willing to support and cooperate on to Prime Minister, and Social Democrat party leader, Stefan Löfven. Although the text isn’t public yet, several points have leaked, including a proposal to allow court witnesses to be anonymous.
Anonymous witnesses has been a recurring debate over the past couple years, as crime has risen and the number of people willing to witness, in particular in connection with gang violence, has decreased to near zero levels. Witnesses have been threatened into staying quiet, have been assaulted, and even murdered. A change of this magnitude in the Swedish court system would be difficult to get through, but already last April the government started an investigation into seeing if it would be possible under Swedish constitutional law: There are many that believe it isn’t. One country that Sweden could look at as an example is Norway, where anonymous witnesses are allowed.
SvD reports that Kristersson’s list also contains a suggestion for making it easy, and legal, for police to carry out body searches, in certain zones only, if the person is suspected, for example, of carrying an illegal weapon. No concrete suspicion must be presented for a body search to take place. The suggestion list is also said to include lowering the threshold for requiring the police to take someone into custody, and doubling the sentence of any gang member that is convicted of committing a crime. According to Kristersson, the increase in violent crime is something that requires just a broad mobilisation, and presumably some stiff law-making.
So far there has been no answer from Löfven, which is natural since perhaps it isn’t considered so seemly for the Prime Minister to jump when Kristersson says so. Kristersson says he expects an answer though: “Either he’s ready to make changes and lead the country out of this crisis, or he’s not.” “In the end,” Kristersson finished, “you have to lead the country or leave the job.”