76 of proof were to take aroused surprisingly little discussion in the lawcommission or the Estate Diet. Instead, most of the opinions and debates on criminal procedure concerned summoning to trial and admissibility of purgatory oaths; practically no discussions on actual rules of proof are recorded. Were questions of proof considered insignificant by the drafters? Hardly; I think there is a more obvious reason for the silence. In fact, an agreement on the basic choices seems to have already existed in 1686 when the LawCommission was founded. As it has been stated above, in the legal scholarship the legal theory of proof had made its decisive breakthrough in the 1680s, and in legal practice the change had taken place by the last decades of the 1600s as well. Therefore, it is no wonder that the statutory theory of proof was clearly taken as self-evident by LawCommission. The first existing draft statute prepared by the Law Commission dates to IZIZ.*'^^ In this draft, one eyewitness was considered a half proof; similarly, various noncoinciding eyewitnesses together were half a proof. In other than capital crimes the accused was, in the case of a half proof, to take a purgatory oath (art. 8). Full proof consisted of a confession (art. 14) or two eyewitnesses (drawing an e contrario conclusion of art. 8). Torture was not allowed for extracting a confession. According to the proposal, mere confession was never enough for conviction; although it was worth all the proof {“går för alt betvis”), confession had to be - especially in “life cases” - supported by circumstantial evidence.''"^ The next Proposition to the Section of Legal Procedure of 1723*°^ reiterated these basic postulates of the 1717 Proposition (art. 6, 7, 13, 14).'°^ In the final proposition to the Section of Legal Procedure of the Lawof 1734, the paragraphs concerning the law of proof were already worded the way they came to be included in the law. Concerning their material content, the essential elements of the previous proposals were included in Chapter 17 as well. There were, however, two novelties - both of them, also, already adopted by the seventeenth-century judicial practice: ahsolutio ab instantia (17: 32) and confessional imprisonment (17: 37). 105 no Among the more relevant issues, the form of judicial hierarchy, purgatory oath, torture and summoning were included. In the travauxpréparatoires, I haye found no discussions on the actual law of proof, with the exception of one comment on absolutio ab instantia. See Strauch 1986 pp. 100-104; Sjögren 1900 I pp. 504-506 (summoning to court), 1901 II pp. 23-24 (summoning to court), 1909 VIII pp. 235-236 (Abrahamsson/it/jso/Mfto ab instantia). The proposal to the City Court Statute {Förslag till radstufz’ubalk) of 1688 contains no material the law of proof. Sjögren 1902 IVpp. 447—470. 106 There were two previous ones, from 1714 and 1715; Sjögren 1903 V, p. ix. Ibid. pp. 433-435, Förslag till Rättegångsbalk 1723, 10 Capitel. Omwittnen och andra laga 105 on bewis. Sjögren 1904 V'l pp. 521-523, Förslag till Rättegångsbalk 1717, Cap. XVIII. Om wittnen och andra laga bewijs. '=9 Ibid. pp. 521-524. "0 Ibid. pp. 559-565. 108
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