RB 54

92 tinental Europe as well. The reception of the legal theory of proof in Sweden only followed this pattern and does not, thus, essentially differ fromthe continental development. In Sweden as in continental Europe,/?oen^^ extraordinaria and absolutio ab instantia (especially together with confessional imprisonment) were more apt for the control needs of the centralizing state as they ensured criminal control even in cases where no full proof could be arrived at. This way, the net of control was spread ever wider. There was, moreover, a genuinely Swedish reason that prevented the spreading of judicial torture. In continental Europe, torture - and the legal theory of proof - was adopted together with a thorough professionalization of the judiciary. With this, court sessions were made secret and the proceedings were based on written material. These arrangements, obviously, suited the use of judicial torture extremely well. Contrariwise, the Swedish judiciarv took an immensely long time- until the nineteenth century - to professionalize, and judicial administration has remained heavily reliant on the lay element even up to modern times. Although written forms increased during the seventeenth century, the adoption of legal rules of proof did not make lower court sessions secret, as was the case in continental Europe.The procedure in the hundred courts and in the town courts remained public and verbal, although written court records were kept and, from 1615 onwards, sent to a high court for inspection. Judicial torture was poorly suited to the public and oral court proceedings. That most lower court torture cases have been found in the practice of the City Court of Stockholm, and very few in the hundred courts of the country side,^^^ seems to confirmthis conclusion. Interestingly, Langbein explains the nonexistence of systematic judicial torture in medieval and Renaissance England by the nonbureaucratic nature of the country’s criminal system: judicial torture could not be confided to laymen. In this respect, Swedish history resembles the English development. In Sweden, local court members, both nämndemän and often judges as well, were untrained in law. The Elite, Courts and People Above, I have attempted to present the Swedish law of proof as it developed in its international, seventeenth-century context. The roots of the nineteenthcentury Finnish law of proof, the starting point of the nineteenth-century The reasons for this cannot he contemplated here. Besides a judicial function, however, the local courts performed clearly administrative functions as well. To legitimize the court sessions, a minimum number of Itical people {allmogen) was always required to be present at the court site; see Renvall 1949 pp. 35—36; Taussi Sjöberg 1990 p. 163. 175 Inger 1976 (b) pp. 187-212; Munktell 1939. i^f* Langbein 1976 pp. 137-138.

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