RB 54

99 The Legal Scholarship: Contemporary Interpretations David Nehrman, true to his nationalistic natural law ideology though well aware of the contemporary juristic writingon penal law,*^ stressed the independence of Swedish lawin relation to foreign influence. Despite his opposition to Roman law,^ Nehrman presents in his book a typical inquisitory procedure, heavily influenced by the European ius commune. According to Nehrman, the procedure started with the establishment of a corpus delicti-, this meant that the judge had to be sure that a crime had taken place. The certainty could not be of a mathematical but of a “moral” kind; if there were binding reasons and law and reason were followed, corpus delicti could be established even if the crime had not been seen.'° The establishment of corpus delicti constituted inquisitio generalis. If, on the basis of inquisitio generalis, the corpus delicti was established and someone could be charged with the crime, inquisitio specialis had to follow'.’* The judge’s inquisition consisted of finding out whether a crime had been committed, who had committed it and of the establishment of all relevant circumstances.’- As for serious crimes, the judge’s responsibility to examine the case was especially important.’^ Nehrman distinguished between “legal” and “philosophical” truth; the former was often no more than a probability. The difficulty lied in that the witnesses could lie or a document could be made up {“uppdiktad”). However, one had to contend with this, since there was “no better way of bringing the truth into the light of day.”’"^ In order to proceed to inquisitio specialis, a certain amount of evidence had to be at hand. Nehrman talked about “circumstances known and proven” {“bekanta fulltygade omständigheter”) of which one could with greater or lesser probability conclude that a certain person had committed the crime to be investigated.’5 But Nehrman’s text is not likely to have proved too helpful to a practicing lawyer or judge, for these binding circumstances could not be “bound to ... rules ... for [the circumstances were] so many and of different kinds.” The conclusions drawn fromthe circumstances could be more or less ^ He mentions several important authors by name, such as Carpzov and Brunnemann, Nehrman 1759 p. 6. See Nehrman 1751 pp. 210, 212 and 1759, pp. 21-22, 25. Swedish law had nothing to do with the “papal inquisition procedure,” which, according to Nehrman, had led to unjust condemnation of many an innocent suspect. Nehrman 1759 pp. 66-67. " Ibid. p. 73. Ibid. p. 69. Ibid. p. 70. Nehrman 1751 p. 225. Nchrman 1759 p. 75.

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