230 mended its abrogation. For the Vaasa jurists, the question was related to the adoption of trial juries; if matters of guilt were turned over to lay juries, then the purgatory oath had no place in the system.The Divisions of Helsinki and Vaasa wanted to rid the system of confessional acquittal and ahsolutio ah instantia-, Turku opposed the abolition.^^ As for the accusatory principle, the majority of the Turku members were against it, and the Helsinki Division was for it. The Vaasa Division was, in principle, in favor of the accusatory principie, but suspected that it be extremely difficult to implement.3“* The differences are not, however, to be exaggerated. On the contrary, it seems more accurate to say that similarities prevailed over differences. The most liberal division, that of Helsinki, was clearly the most important as far as the number of members and the positions held by themare concerned. Also, Ehrstrom’s writings which promoted modern ideas attracted no opposition writings. It can justly be deduced that modern ideas of criminal procedure were advancing rapidly in the legal profession in the 1860s and 1870s, despite the slight delay in the regions outside the capital city. The small Finnish legal corps of the mid-nineteenth century appears, thus, to have been relatively homogeneous as to their opinions on legal modernization. In such a small country, however, a genuine debate hardly ever arose, and many questions tended to be monopolized by the sole expert on the subject. In the field of criminal procedure, this authority was enjoyed by K. G. Ehrström. Although his rather radical views bore no fruit insofar as statutory law was concerned, Ehrstrom’s general modernizing attitude gradually gained acceptance among the Finnish mid-nineteenth-century legal professionals. Why so? What stake did they have in these transformations? Legal Professionals in Society: Control, Legitimation, and Power The activity with which the newly professionalized Finnish legal professionals - both scientifically oriented ones at the Imperial Alexander University and those with more practical ambitions in Finland’s Legal Association - took to the problems they considered important shows a heightened sensitivity toward reforming the law. As part of the profession, it is likely that the Finnish judiciary approached the questions of proof likewise, ready to reform the law of proof to better suit the progressive spirit of the time. The spirit of the time? A sensitivity to modern legal problems and newly risen professional eagerness for reforms seemplausible enough to be attributed 32 Tidskrift 1870 pp. 156-157. 33 A minority of the Central Division saw the matter as dependent on the complete reformof the systemof proof; ibid. pp. 157-159. 3'* Ibid. pp. 207-212.
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