the svea court of appeal in the early modern period 402 Adolf (r. 1611-1632) wanted to concentrate on military activities in the Baltic region (against Russia), he needed a pragmatic solution for the high court instances. Several attempts had been made in the sixteenth century to create the high court (with help of European models) and break from the increasingly obsolete medieval royal court system. Parties from the nobility with cases in the Svea Court of Appeal did not accept its decisions and approached the king to get a revised decision. This resulted in a conflict between the court and the king, which was finally resolved in 1615 with the royal confirmation of the Procedural Rules for the Court of Appeal (Rättegångs-Process) which (p. 35) preserved the right of litigant to petition the sovereign for redress with help of a beneficium revisionis; it was not the right to an appeal but for an exceptional remedy, revision. During the seventeenth century, this opportunity to put the case before the king and his councillors became increasingly widely used, and a special office (Nedre Justitierevisionen) was organized in 1669 with special professionally trained secretaries (revisionssekreterare) who prepared the oral report to the king and the government. From the early 1670s, a special division of the government handled the court cases together with the king (Övre justitierevisionen). Not until 1789 was a Supreme Court (Högsta domstolen) founded in Sweden.1155 One effect of the opportunity from 1615 for the parties to approach the king was that the hovrätt was successively reduced to a court of appeal. There was no need to have just one court of appeal for the whole expanding country. In 1623, a court of appeal was established in Turku for the Finnish territory, and in 1630 another was founded in Dorpat (Livonia) for the Baltic territories. With the creation of a new instrument of government in 1634, another Court of Appeal, the Göta hovrätt, was founded in Jönköping for the southern part of Sweden. The Stockholm Court of Appeal, still the most prestigious of the Swedish courts of appeal, was namedSvea hovrätt from that time. The creation of the appellate court for ordinary law cases has to be put into the larger context of the judicial reform. This collegial court was chaired by the President and composed by three categories of judges: those belonging to the Council of the Realm, those belonging to the nobility, and the learned judges (often picked among the professors at the univer1155 Modéer, Kjell Å. 2010 pp. 110 ff.
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