156 overwhelmingly turned to the free evaluation of evidence.Furthermore, in all major newer Finnish statutes since the 1890s the lawof proof was arranged along the lines of free evaluation of evidence. There was, then, very little left of the old construction of the statutory theory of proof. However, despite attempts at and demands for a complete reform of the criminal procedural system, the main statute governing criminal procedure, the Procedural Secticm of the Lawof 1734, remained unaltered until 1948 when the articles concerning legal evidence were reformed. The open contradiction between the statutory theory of proof provided by the Law of 1734 on one hand, and the prevailing free evaluation of evidence that had become dominant in the contemporary European legal science and Finland’s national legal practice and newer legislation, on the other hand, is readily observed in Wrede’s writing. At the principal level, he criticizes the legal theory of proof harshly, not leaving a stone unturned: “The legal theorv ... often ... leads to a mere formal truth ... The legal theory ignores the fact that the circumstances that can convince one of a fact have in different cases such different evidentiarc' values that their exhaustive regulation is not possible. Thus, the witness statement of one trustworthy person can often constitute such strong evidence that it leaves no room for doubt, but on the other side, the statements of two or three coinciding witnesses can sometimes prove to be false, even if these witnesses correspond to the legal qualifications of trustworthiness. And how does one wish to regulate the impact of circumstantial evidence through clear rules? Whereas one piece of circumstantial evidence can often bring complete certainty, in other cases such certainty cannot be reached with the help of a dozen such pieces of evidence ... [With the help of legal rules of proof] a legal or formal truth, instead of a material or real truth, is established.”^* “One witness is worth a halfproof only. That this concept with its origin in the legal theory of proof is in itself indefensible should be easy to see. Either legal certainty exists or such certainty has not been reached, and in the latter case to divide the uncertainty into fractions is logically impossible.”*'^ At the theoretical or ideological level, then, Wrede was clearly prepared to let the legal theory of proof go. Wrede openly recognizes the discrepancy between legal practice and written law: “As already mentioned, as to the significance of indirect evidence, our written law is of the opinion that ... circumstantial evidence cannot ever constitute full 56 Wrede writes in 1894 that the legal rules of proof had largely been given up by the legal praetice, Wrede 1894 p. 17; see likewise Sundström 1924 p. 311, who cites Hjalmar ^X'estring as saying that “[the abandonment of legal rules ot proof] can, in Sweden, probably be said to have reached the extent to which [the rules of proof] have, by way of custom, almost fallen into disuse.” See also Alanen 1928 pp. 315—322. 5^ On the long reformprocess, see Nousiainen 1993 pp. 534-566. 58 Wrede 1894 pp. 14-15. 5*' Ibid. p. 222.
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