RB 54

220 maximum. As in the juristic writing, increasing emphasis was placed on the intensity of the criminal will; intentionality {dolus) was clearly separated from negligence {culpa).^^ The committee set out the principal lines for a total reformof the criminal law. Realizing it would take time to draft and as the need of reformwas felt to be pressing, the Bergbom committee proposed a partial reform. The five reformstatutes were issued on October 10, 1866, and entered into force on the January 1, 1870. With them, the prison sentence was reformed and certain crimes decriminalized. A new degree of homicide, “manslaughter without the intention of killing,” was instituted.Homicides and certain other crimes were, thus, divided into three categories according to the intent of the wrongdoer (negligent killing, manslaughter, murder) and no longer tied to externally observable circumstances. The statutes altered the judicial practice significantly. In addition to the partial reform, a committee consisting of Vice-President of the Judicial Department of the Senate Otto af Schulten, Appellate Court Judge Nils Grotenfelt, senator J. D. Dahl, asessor Adolf Grotenfelt, and professor K. G. Ehrströmwas assigned to reformthe penal lawin 1865. The committee continued on the fundamental lines set by the Bergbomcommittee and approved by the Diet in 1863-1864.53 The committee finished its work in 1875.54 Like the contemporary opinio doctorum of criminal law, the proposal was based on the division between the objective and subjective Tatbestand of crime. Culpability was divided into degrees {dolus determinatus of two kinds, dolus eventualis of two kinds, serious negligence, negligence, carelessness). Moreover, the proposal established rules of sentencing.55 The committee’s proposal met withintense criticism, as a result of which the rules of sentencing and the definitions of the degrees of culpability were left out of the statute. Instead, these questions were considered as belonging to the realm of science.5^ Obviously, since scientific definitions and divisions of culpability continued to give rise to a doctrinal debate that hardly showed signs of abating, it was generally felt that the time was not ripe for the general theory of the structure of crime to be pinned down onto a statute. The central principles of classical criminal law that interest us here, however, were applied consistently throughout the Criminal Code of 1889. At this stage of development, the legislator, thus, seems to take it for granted that the judge has the means of 5' Ibid. pp. 466, 475. Ibid. pp. 493. 55 Ibid. p. 491. 5"* For a detailed account on the birth of the Criminal Code of 1889, see Lahti 1977 pp. 4—9; see also Kivivuori 1969 pp. 179-187; and, on the history until the statutes of 1866, Blomstedt 1964. 55 Utriainen 1984 pp. 47—48. 55 Ibid. pp. 49-52.

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