225 Summary The Supreme Court and the principle offree evaluation of evidence In the code of 1734 the legal principles of evidence in criminal cases had been codified. Circumstantial evidence was, however, allowed in certain cases, e.g. by permitting an accused person to make oath of his innocence, in the application of the doctrine of absolutio ab instantia, when on the ground of insufficient evidence the case was returned on open verdict, and in those cases, when the use of a severe form of punishment could be actualized. In 1826 and 1832 the Justice Committee, whose members were familiar with the legal development on the Continent and in England suggested in their proposals for newlaws on civil and criminal procedure that Sweden should introduce the principle of free (i.e. unrestricted) evaluation of evidence and accept the admissibility of circumstantial evidence. The Supreme Court dismissed, however, both proposals as the judges of the Court at that time were very conservative. Nonetheless, fromthe 1830’s, the principle began to be applied to some extent by the lower courts. In the 1850’s the Supreme Court approved the use of circumstantial evidence in a number of cases concerning assault, theft and forgery of currency. In 1871 and 1880, the Court went so far as to accept the formal admissibility of circumstantial evidence in a couple of cases of murder. There were, however, members of the Supreme Court who were critical of this judicial acceptance of circumstantial evidence. The judges should from the point of legal security follow the law. Similar views were expressed throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century, when fresh attempts were made to reform the laws of civil and criminal procedure in Sweden. The development of the law could not, however, be stopped. In 1910 the Supreme Court accepted the principle of free evaluation of evidence when it sentenced to death a person accused of felony murder solely on the basis of circumstantial evidence. In 1911 a Commission was established to examine the laws of procedure. In a report in 1926 the Commission proposed the introduction into Swedish procedure of the principles of orality, immediacy and publicity as well as the accusatorial procedure and the principle of free evaluation of evidence. The proposals of the Commission were accepted by Parliament in 1942 and passed into law in 1948. 16
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