297 When the high court revoked death sentences it simultaneously imposed a different penalty, commuting the sentence. The right of the court to do so was often questioned, especially under the absolute monarchs. The tendency was clearest in the 1690s, but even then the court could continue to mitigate sentences despite warning letters from the king. Contacts between the King in Council and the high court were generally in writing, but when civil cases were reviewed, representatives of the high court were sometimes summoned to Stockholm to defend their judgements. The high court could also ask the King in Council for advice when in doubt about the interpretation of a law. As the inadequacy of the old national law became increasingly obvious, despite a growing succession of royal ordinances, the enquiries to the high court grew in number and detail. So too did the answers, in an ambition to close loopholes in the law. The King in Council decided who would preside and sit in the high court. The work of the high court was thus controlled by this method of recruitment and by the steering documents in the form of laws and ordinances. Otherwise, the high court was left in peace in the majority of cases. The relationship was one of trust. It was only towards the end of the seventeenth century that the absolute kings tended to make their influence felt in the form of series of prescriptions and limitations in the right of the high court to mitigate sentences. The high court nevertheless continued to be the last instance in most criminal cases. 6. One duty of the high court was to supervise and control the hundred courts and town courts. The hundred courts, which made up 90 per cent of the lower courts, were dominated by the so-called law-reader system until 1680. This meant that the hundred governors employed law-readers instead of administering justice themselves within the hundred. When Göta High Court began its work in 1635, the trials in all 78 jurisdictional areas were conducted by these law-readers. The high court had the potential to exercise control in the following ways: — by reviewing the examinations and judgements of the lower courts in cases of serious crime. — by annual scrutiny of the judgement books of the lower courts. — by interpreting the law when the lower courts requested advice in uncertain cases. To exercise this control, the high court could use a variety of means such as: — appending to the high court resolution a warning or reprimand to the judge who had tried the case in the lower court. 20
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