general background – mia korpiola 31 ting to accept law students as trainees observing sessions (auskultant) regularly from 1628 on, the courts of appeal contributed to a degree of professionalization of Swedish lawyers despite the Swedish judiciary and legal culture remaining largely lay-dominated for centuries.45 The role of the courts of appeal in making law has been emphasized. This took place partly through “the fundamental and authoritative answers and statements,” given by the courts to questions put to them; partly through the case law created by their precedents.46 On the other hand, ever since the inception, the courts of appeal turned directly to the king for guidance in difficult matters involving the interpretation of law.47 The activities of one court of appeal could also influence the praxis of the other courts through circulars, legal questions relating to particular cases put by one court to the king, whose authoritative answer was then circulated to the rest.48 Thus, some unification of the law in the whole realm took place even if the question regarding the interpretation of the law came from one particular court of appeal. The courts of appeal have traditionally also been considered as the key institutions in the reception of mainly Roman foreign law. However, recent research has shown that the perceptions of the influence of Roman law on court-of-appeal practice need to be reconsidered. Roman law was not considered an authoritative source of law, and it was rarely explicitly cited by the Svea Court as justification for its decisions. Rather, the influence was more indirect.49 To what extent the first statutes of 1614 (1614 Ordinance of Judicial Procedure) and 1615 (Rules on the Procedure of the Court of Appeal) establishing and regulating the court were modelled on foreign high courts and parliaments is disputed. Nowadays, researchers would hardly adhere to Karl Gustaf Westman’s nationalistic notion that “[f]ew institutions 45 Gaunt, David 1975 esp. pp. 31-71; Petrén, Sture 1964 pp. 86-93; Jägerskiöld, Stig 1964 pp. 204-212. See also Kekkonen, Jukka 2002 pp. 18-19; Kekkonen, Jukka 2002 p. 66. 46 E.g., Inger, Göran 1986 p. 71. 47 E.g., the King’s answer to the Svea Court of Appeal regarding the questions asked, 23 June 1615, Kongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, pp. 163-165. 48 E.g., Letter from Charles XI to the Svea Court of Appeal, 30 June 1687, Kongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, pp. 1129-1130. 49 See esp. Jägerskiöld, Stig 1963 esp. pp. 199-202; Modéer, Kjell Åke 1996 p. 193, and for recent criticism of the extent of the use of Roman law in the Svea Court of Appeal, Trolle Önnerfors, Elsa 2013 pp. 350-351. See also Heikki Pihlajamäki’s and Jussi Sallila’s chapters in this book.
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