social law, contemporary legal history, and the history of public law monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. According to the Instrument of Government, Sweden is also a member of the EU.6 Similar features may be found in other European constitutional monarchies. However, other provisions will be more unexpected if you learn law in a very traditional modernist way, focusing only on the current black-letter constitution, apparently not fitting into the representative democratic and parliamentary scheme of a Western European constitutional monarchy. For example, when the time comes to appoint a new government, it is the talman(speaker) of the Riksdag, and not the king or queen regnant, who is responsible for proposing a prime minister and leading the discussions among the parties.7 It not the king or queen regnant who signs new legislation to promulgate it; instead, this task is assigned to the government, represented by a minister.8 And the government has far-reaching powers to adapt generally binding legal provisions införordningar (ordinances), with the same legal force as Acts of Law. Whereas this requires delegation from the Riksdag in some areas, in others the Instrument of Government gives this mandate directly to the government.9 The government can also function as the supreme administrative body, hearing administrative appeals as the last instance.10 The explanation for this lies in legal history. A figure lurks behind all these phenomena – the constitutional ghost of the Royal Majesty. This is so because the predecessor of the 1974 Instrument of Government was very different in constitutional design. On 1 January 1975 the fundamental law had replaced the 1809 Instrument of Government, then the second-oldest written constitution in the world after the 1787USConstitution (whereuponNorway’s constitution of 1814 assumed second place). The 1809 Instrument of Government had been based on a division of powers between the king and the Riksdag, dividing public power between 6 Instrument of Government, ch 1, ss 1, 4, 5 & 6. 7 Instrument of Government, ch 6, s 4. 8 Instrument of Government, ch 8, s 18; Act on the Publication of Acts and Other Statutes (SFS1976:633). 9 Instrument of Government, ch 8, ss 3–7. 10 Rune Lavin & Lars-Göran Malmberg, ‘Administrative Law’, in Michael Bogdan (ed.), Swedish Legal System(Stockholm: Norstedts Juridik, 2010) 79. 169
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