criminal justice system Archives • SwedeInternational

disbarred

Over the last weeks, no fewer than four lawyers have been expelled from the Swedish Bar Association. The latest ousting was for passing on information from two jailed clients to persons involved in their respective cases. According to DN, Edip Samuelsson contacted, and passed on information to, his client’s alibi in a murder case. In another instance, he is reported to have provided financial information from a client to the client’s wife at the same time as this client was suspected of a serious financial crime. In both these cases, Samuelsson was found by the Swedish supreme court to have acted in violation of the restrictions imposed upon him by these cases.

Originally, the Swedish Bar Association had decided to not expel Samuelsson for his actions. Instead, he was given a 50,000 SEK fine, the highest fine allowable. However, the office of Chancellor of Justice didn’t think the Swedish Bar Association came down hard enough, and took the case to the supreme court. The supreme court turned out to agree with the Chancellor, and voted to disbar the lawyer.

“I think it is important to get clarity on how to look at this kind of violation of restrictions because it has a big impact on how the legal profession is seen” Chancellor Mari Heidenborg said after the decision. “It is incredibly important, she continued, “not least for the detained: The risk with violating restrictions is that it can actually be worse for the detainee themselves.” For more on the Chancellor of Justice, see below.

more cases

In other cases this year, the Bar Association did do enough. Last month, it expelled two lawyers for leaking information on police investigations to various people connected to gang activity. Their real names, as well as their codenames “The Prince” and “the King”, were found in the now-famous Encrochat files. They were relieved of the lawyerly duties and privileges.

Also earlier this year, another lawyer was permanently vacationed when she, too, was found to have abrogated detainee restrictions. In this case, the lawyer played mail deliverer, delivering letters from her client, who was detained in a big narcotics case, to her client’s wife.

The Swedish Bar Association has not always been a vocal supporter of tougher punishments for convicted criminals. The association called doing away with the “punishment rebate” (a praxis in which the number of crimes committed automatically decreases the punishment for each crime) a “badly thought-out and criminal-political opportunistic idea trend.” But where the Bar Association might fall short, it seems the Chancellor of Justice is ready to pick up the slack.

symbol of the office of Chancellor of Justice — check out the cranes

Basically, if you want to claim damages against the state, you contact this office. Or, if the police do something wrong, this office makes the judgement call. They also are charged with protecting freedom om expression and will act as prosecutor if this right is restricted in any instance. Plus, it can also, apparently, get involved with disciplinary errands involving lawyers due to its capacity to act in the interests of the general public. (Who has heard of this agency before?)

The office's symbol, besides the usual three crowns, includes two cranes. The one crane holds the traditional scales of justice. The other crane is holding a stone - if the crane falls asleep, it will drop the stone on its own foot and wake up. The cranes are meant to refer to the Chancellor of Justice's task of making sure that courts and other authorities fulfill their obligations according to what justice and the law require. 

Cranes. I like it.

7 Nov. – Ersson: same question, same answer

what happens if you won’t put on your seatbelt
pic: traveller.com.au

Elin Ersson, the activist that stopped a plane from taking off in order to keep a man from being deported back to Afghanistan, was again convicted of breaking the law under the Aviation Act (luftfartslagen). As SvD’s legal commentator, Mårten Schulz, explains, someone who willfully or through gross negligence ignores the directions of an officer can be held responsible. The punishment for doing this, however, isn’t that much – about on par, Schulz says, with hopping the turnstile going into the subway. Ersson was fined 60 day-fines (dagsböter) for a total of 4200 kronor.

The Ersson case has had a couple twists and turns. Ersson boarded a plane in the summer of last year to stop the deportation of one man in particular, but it turned out that that particular man wasn’t on the flight. Another man, who Ersson didn’t know and whose case was unfamiliar to her, was on the plane being deported instead. Ersson decided to go through with her protest anyway, and refused to sit down so that the plane could taxi to takeoff. She was charged, and convicted last February, of not obeying the plane’s officers and sitting down.

However, in an investigation by Svenska Dagbladet, it came to light that one of the lay judges (nämndeman) in her case had called Ersson a criminal before the trial had even begun. Obviously, his judgement was totally compromised, and the trial had to be done over. (For more on the judicial process in Sweden, in particular about the Swedish system of lay judges, see this post.) The do-over trial has now been completed and the judgement remains the same: Ersson has again been found in breach of the Aviation Act.

The crime, however, is not actually in the Swedish penal code, and some commentators are making the argument that the verdict should be made more concrete than what is stated in the fuzzier Aviation Act (SvD.se/Ersson). Ersson’s sentence is based the judges’ understanding that while only the captain can make the decision that it is time to sit down and put your seatbelt on in preparation for takeoff, the cabin personnel in that case are acting as the messengers for the captain. Ersson claimed that she didn’t see the “put on your seatbelt” light, and that it was only the cabin personnel’s requests to do so. (The captain and the crew were not questioned in either trial.)

In addition, Ersson’s lawyer Thomas Fridh is also saying that not only didn’t she see the lamp, she never meant to break the law or to make a stand through civil disobedience – she was only protesting Swedish asylum policy. Thomas Fridh says that Ersson could not have foreseen how the law would be interpreted (Svd.se/Ersson2).

“We’re going to appeal” said Fridh. “If only to get some clarity on what the terms are if a similar action is under consideration” (Svd.se/Ersson2).

The cost for Ersson’s actions, according to the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, was around 240,000 kronor. Dagens Nyheter notes that both the man Ersson meant to save from deportation when she boarded the plane, and the man whose deportation Ersson ended up being arrested for by obstructing the plane’s operation, have since been deported.

Day-fines (dagsböter) are doled out as punishment for crimes that are more serious than speeding, but less serious than mandatory jail time. They’re factored by both the number of days and the income of the person being fined. 60 days isn’t that very long (dagsböter can go up to 150 days), and Ersson has little income – the court has leeway in setting an income marker and in this case set it at 70 kronor per day. 60 days, 70 kronor a day, makes 4200 kronor. Had Ersson had a much higher income, her fine would have been a lot higher, but could still have a length of 60 days. Day-fines are set in some European countries (Finland, Germany and Denmark, for example) but aren’t done in the US and only partially in the UK (thanks Wikipedia).

29 aug. – politicians, affronted

“The biggest problems in society today are both the shootings and the explosions.”

There aren’t many that would disagree with Minister for Home Affairs Mikael Damberg on this. Two women died this week, one shot at point blank range while out walking – and carrying her baby – and the other from shots fired from the street while she was in her home. These two outrageous incidents are only the latest. But the fact that the victims this week are women, and that they weren’t killed at the hands of a male acquaintance (like in the vast majority of cases), made for a barrage of tweets from the country’s politicians.

“Complete darkness,” chirped Center Party leader Annie Lööf, “criminals have lost all respect for human life.” “Only lame and disgusting monsters go after a new mother” tweeted a shocked, just shocked, Minister for Justice and Migration Morgan Johansson: “They will be hunted to the end of the world if needed.” And the Swedish Prime Minister was not late in chiming in. “This is an incomprehensibly evil action, that makes me and the whole country disgusted. This has no place in our society. We will steadfastly conquer these murderers.” It’s possible these statements of extreme indignation sounded better in Swedish, but they didn’t, really.

Since these are only the latest events in a rising level of violent crime, there have been a slew of suggestions for countering it over the last few years. “More police!” has been a recurring refrain, but this takes time and good will. Police in Sweden have traditionally been seen as only slightly better than old gum scraped off the bottom of your shoe. This attitude should perhaps be changed first, although there is no sign of this from the government.

Two steps that appear more likely to be implemented in the nearer future is a reduction in the number of hoops a police department must hop through to put up a surveillance camera, and an initiative to require registration of all new SIM card buyers. True to form, neither of these “quickest” measures are likely to be in place before well after the new year. If things continue as they’ve been going, 23 more people won’t live to see these measures enacted.

11 July – jail a drag no more

SvD writes that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service (Kriminalvården) has sent in a request to the government to change the law in order to be able to make Swedish prisons smoke-free. No smoking for either prisoners/clients or for employees. This is actually already the case in Great Britain, Iceland as well as in several states in the US, but KRIS, a nationwide support group for those who have served time, are concerned that life will now only become even harder for inmates.