part iii • contemporary legal history • henrik wenander act of law or in an ordinance.25 In the same vein, until 2010 the rules on constitutional review limited court review of the legality of acts to manifest errors.26 This was the case not only about Acts of Law – which could be explained by the Riksdag as the representatives of the people – but also of the government ordinances. The role of the government as the last instance in administrative matters is a legacy of the King in Council acting as the supreme administrative body. Owing to the demands of a possibility for the judicial review of administrative decisions under EUlaw and the European Convention on Human Rights, however, this capacity has largely been transferred to the administrative courts.27 Sometimes – very rarely – there may still be uncertainty as to which court or public body is the correct successor to the old Royal Majesty. In 2002, a person turned to the Supreme Administrative Court to obtain the restoration of expired time for his application to be introduced into the House of the Nobility. The Supreme Administrative Court ruled that it was not competent to hear such a claim, without stating whether this was a matter for the Government or even perhaps for the king in some remaining ceremonial capacity.28 In Swedish discourse, it is still very common to refer to the Riksdag and government as statsmakterna (lit. the state powers) or as the ‘first or second estate’. Here too we see the contours of the old figure of Royal Majesty. There is yet to be a tradition of seeing the courts as the ‘third estate’; this term is used to refer to the press, which enjoys a constitutionally protected role originally established by the 1766 Freedom of the Press Act.29 25 Administrative Procedure Act (1986:223), s 3; Administrative Procedure Act (2017:900), s 4. A proposal to only allow exceptions in the form of acts of law was not supported by the government, Prop. 2016/17:180En modern och rättssäker förvaltning – ny förvaltningslag, 37 ff. 26 In the wording of the Act Amending the Instrument of Government (1979:933), ch 11, s 14. The provision was amended in 2010, abolishing the requirement to prove a manifest error. 27 Wiweka Warnling-Nerep, Rätten till domstolsprövning & rättsprövning (3rd edn, Stockholm: Jure, 2008), 34 ff. 28 RÅ2002 n. 17. 29 Joakim Nergelius, Media Law in Sweden(Alphen aan den Rijn: Wolters Kluwer, 2015), 25 ff. at ¶ 49 ff.; Johan Hirschfeldt, ‘Free Access to Public Documents: A Heritage from 1766’, 174
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