202 the institution from the point of view of the prevailing free evaluation of evidence. Conditional acquittal was, as we have seen, considered an alternative to acquittal proper; by both, the accused was set free. Conditional acquittal, unlike absolutio ab instantia and especially confessional imprisonment, played no definite procedural role in the system. Because of the logical contradiction and threat that absolutio ab instantia and confessional imprisonment posed to the free evaluation of evidence, these two decisional categories had to disappear, whereas conditional acquittal, as a harmless historical relic, was allowed to linger on until its statutory abolition. Conclusion: The Legal Theory of Proof and its Abolition in Legal Practice The first five decades of the last century were the final phase in the history of Roman-canon law of proof in Finland, a history that began with the gradual introduction of statutory rules of proof into Swedish lawstarting at the end of the 1500s. But as we have seen, in Sweden the legal theory cif proof was introduced in a profoundly different formwhen compared to continental Europe. Because of the lack of learned lawyers and, correspondingly, the relatively strong lay element in courts, the theory was introduced in an unrefined form, without the cultivated legal technicalities fostered by continental academic jurisprudence and, at least to a considerable extent, brought to the practical legal level by legal professionals trained in universities. In Sweden, the legal theory of proof was only partially received, and it was only partially and in a crude form laid down in statutory law. As previous, albeit largely fragmentary, studies on the pre-nineteenth century Swedish lawof proof strongly suggest, the Roman-canon legal theory of proof sifted only partially through to the Swedish lower court practice, and it was never rigorously followed. We have seen that perhaps the most distinctive feature of the legal theory of proof as it came to be practiced in Finland duringthe first half of the nineteenth century was the attainment of several decisional alternatives instead of just two, acquittal and conviction. This wider variety of decisional choice, as has been demonstrated above, is no Finnish or Swedish specialty, but rather a common European phenomenon. At least since the seventeenth century, the legal theory of proof was not pure anywhere, if by “pureness” is meant a strict adherence to pre-formulated rules leaving little or no space for judicial discretion. Hence, a strong element of free evaluation was built into the Finnish system of legal proof right fromthe beginnings of the adoption of legal rules of proof. The choice of decisional alternative depended chiefly on the amount of evidence presented; whether the amount of evidence was considered to add up to
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