RS 26

the svea court of appeal in the early modern period 408 was the provincial one. This constitutional system was upheld down to 1806 when the German Empire abolished it and the then Swedish king (GustavIVAdolf, r. 1792 – 1809) argued he was no longer tied to the old Treaty and therefore decided that Swedish law should be applied in Pomerania.1162 The same provincial status was given to the former Danish territories, the Scanian provinces, when they were ceded to Sweden in the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658, and confirmed in the Treaty of Copenhagen in 1660. The absolutism of the Swedish kings from 1680, however, resulted in a political decision to break the rule in the Treaties and introduce Swedish law in those territories from 1 October 1683.1163 In Livonia as well, the absolute Swedish king Charles XI made an unsuccessful attempt to introduce Swedish laws as aprimary legal source. The Swedish codes (Das Schwedische Land- und Stadt-Recht), however, were then translated into German, then the judicial language in this province.1164 To sum up this part: the Swedish legal culture of the seventeenth century can metaphorically be identified as a patchwork quilt arrangement. The territories annexed to the Swedish Realm, because of their political relation with the Swedish mainland (including Finland) established different judicial and legal structures. The German territories did not apply Swedish law at all (with one exception, the military courts abroad) and in Livonia, Swedish law was applied simply as a subsidiary legal resource. The new Scanian territories in southern Sweden, however, in spite of the rulings in the international public law treaties, were assimilated into the Swedish legal system because of a domestic ruling. The Svea Court of Appeal was dominated by the concept of privileges in its formative period. It also dominated the early modern Swedish legal culture. The jurists formulated this in a legal rule, Suum cuique tribuere, 1162 Modéer, Kjell Å. 1991 p. 224. 1163 Modéer, Kjell Å. 1983 pp. 129 ff. 1164 Rudbeck, Johannes 1915 pp. 75 f. The Main Principle of Early Modern Legal Culture: Suum Cuique Tribuere

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