147 sertation. Whereas most of the German scholars had in the 1840s and 1850s moved to prefer free evaluation of evidence and a jury system, Ehrstrom’s reformative views did not, even if they were formulated, reach his book. Nevertheless, parting from the “the only correct notion of a judicial vocation,” Ehrströmcame to the conclusion that the accusatory principle was the preferable one: more than anything, Ehrström likens the judge’s office to that of an umpire. Ehrström demanded purity insofar as procedural principles are considered: the French “conglomerate” of accusatory and inquisitorial principles does not satisfy him.2> What was “judicial vocation”? For Ehrström, it was not to be confused with the state’s general responsibility to keep up a legal system {rättsvård, Rechtspflege). The judge had, properly understood, nothing to do with “preventive justice” or with the responsibilities of the prosecutorial offices. The judge, on the contrary, had the right and the responsibility only to deal with the facts that appeared before him: “To thejudge’s vocation, on the contrary, belong actually only the competence and responsibility to judge, e.g., decide what in a given case is right or wrong according to the law (“appliquer le fait ä la loi”). But to make such a decision, nothing else is needed except to be able to understand “the given case,” such as it stands In the ... accusation, to decide how the accusation is proven with the help of evidence, and to, in the former case, pronounce the normprovided by the law, and in the latter, reject the charges as unproven. For the judicial authority as such it does not matter whether the correct state of circumstances becomes exposed or not. For [the judicial authority] it is enough that the decisions come out formally right. If the judge steps over that line, he plunges into other parts of legal administration, parts that certainly are important in general, but nevertheless therefore do not belong to the judicial administration. ”2Despite the necessity to interpret laws, Ehrström’s judge was a passive one; it was his business only to "... decide whether the legal cases in question really are of the kind that the statute refers to, or not, and \.opronounce the provisions of the statute thereof ... his responsibilities, therefore, include nothing else than to ... on the basis of the characteristics that the law establishes on the existence of the case referred to in pp. 38-39, 41. -- Ibid. pp. 57-58. “Till domarckallet horer dcremot egentligen blott befogenhet och skyldighet att döma, d.v.s. ‘afgöra hvad somi ett gifvet fall enligt lagen är rätt eller orätt’ (‘appliquer le fait ä la loi’). Men till ett sådant dömande behöfves icke annat, än att kunna uppfatta ‘det gifna fallet’, sådant detsamma uppställes uti käromålet... pröva huruvida dess kännetecknen enligt bevisningen finnas förhanden, eller ej, samt att i det förra händelsen uttala det rättsbud, somlagen derom gifvit, och i det sednare förkasta käromålet såsomobestyrkt. För domaremakten såsomsådan är det likgiltigt, om sanna förhållandet blir utredt, eller ej. Det är henne nog, att utslagen blifva formclt rättvisa. Gör domaren derutöfver, sä kastar han sig in på andra delar af rättsvården, hvilka visserligen äro af vigt för det almänna, men likväl icke derföre också tillhöra domaremakten.’’
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