346 The remarkable thing, then, was that in Sweden criminal trials were also conducted according to the adversary principle; both parties, the plaintiff, or prosecutor, and the accused, took part in the trial as two formally equal sides. The main difference between civil and criminal trials was thus that in the latter case the prosecutor’s office, the prosecutor, and the court were to see to it, ex officio, that an indictment was issued and that the process was pursued to its conclusion, that is, to a verdict, in the manner prescribed by the law. The quotation above does not, however, reflect the whole truth concerning the conduct of trials in Swedish courts during the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. In other words, the Russian legislators were not correctly informed about Swedish legal practices. It is true that Swedish criminal procedure was, in form, an adversary procedure, but in practice the courts had an independent responsibility for investigating matters, and the judge was to ascertain the truth, which meant that during this period the conduct of trials was actually inquisitorial in character.'"’ The Swedish form of conducting trials, as it was understood by the Russian legislators, was included in the Ukaz o forme suda, which prescribed that Russian courts would “not distinguish (as was done earlier), one sud, the other rozysk, but there will be only one, sud.” In other words, the adversary principle was to be applied in all trials. There was, however, one exception to that rule. The fifth chapter of the ukaz stipulated that, in the case of crimes such as treason, lese majeste, and insurrection, which constituted special threats to the political order personified by the absolute monarch, the Ukaz o forme suda would not apply. In connection with this chapter, Peter offered the following explanation: By the term state affairs is understood treason or misdeed aimed against the sovereign and the realm, as well as insurrection. Crime, treason, or hostile words (against the tsar or his family, author’s note) to /5/ (that is, chapter 5 of the Ukaz o forme suda, authors note) and insurrection. 173 *■* Kjell Äke Modéer, “Den offentlige försvararen. Rättsliistoriska studier rörande frågan om rättegångsbiträde åt häktad,” in idem ed., Rättshistoriska studier tillägnade Gösta Hassclberg (Lund, 1977), 254; Per-Olof Ekelöf, Processuella grundbegrepp och allmänna processprinciper (Stockholm, 1956), 1S5; Siegfried Matz, Om underdomarens materiella processledning i svensk ordinär civilprocess (Stockholm, 1919), 40, 46—47, which argues that the judge’s ability to direct trials was weakened in civil cases when the written form of presentation was adopted in the courts toward the end of the seventeenth century. *■- ZA (no. 395), 400. Ibid., loc.cit. i'-* TsGADA, f. 248 delo 24 1. 168.
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