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The Scandinavian Legal Family -
An IntroductionMårten Schultz (LLD)
Faculty of Law, Stockholm University;
Stockholm Centre for Commercial Law
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Today’s Lecture
• Introduction to Swedish/Scandinavian law
• Characteristics of Scandinavian civil law• Why Scandinavian law is not like the
continental, civil law systems• Why Scandinavian law is not like the
common law systems• The Scandinavian approach in the era of
globalization (Europeanization)
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Introduction to Todays Lecture
• Civil law (patrimonial law) – where differences are most apparent
• (Public law and criminal law, an example of a Swedish freedom of press and whistle blower protection)
• Emphasis on Swedish law.
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Introduction to Scandinavian Law
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General Observations
• Scandinavia and the Nordic countries• Language barriers in the Nordic
countries• The use of non-national legal sources
(from other Nordic countries) in courts, preparatory works, academia, etc.
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Brief Remarks on the Constitutional Structure of the Scandinavian Legal Systems
• Constitution? Swedish examples • No constitutional court • Division of powers• The court system• The judge career
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Methodological Remarks
• The use of preparatory works• Analogies• ”Legal dogmatics”
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Introduction to Scandinavian Civil Law
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Introduction to Scandinavian Civil Law
• Sweden (Scandinavia): No civil code• The Swedish law reform from 1734• Attempts to codify Scandinavian law• The Swedish ”law book” (lagboken) is not a code
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Statutory Law and Judge Made Law
• Swedish civil law: A patchwork of legislation and general principles
• On the notion of ”general principles” in this context
• Systematics of Swedish civil law
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Legislative Gaps
• General law of obligations• Services (non-consumers)• Unjust enrichment/the law of
restitution• Negotiorum gestio • (Qausi-contracts)• Implications of a void contract
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The Nordic Legislative Co-operation
• The Nordic tradition • ”Common” legislation: The Act on
Contracts (avtalslagen), the sales of goods act (köplagen), consumer protection legislation
• Contemporary projects?
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Statutory Law and Judgemade Law – a more detailed view
• General contract law• Property law• The law of sales• Consumer protection law• Tort law
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Why Scandinavian law is not like the continental systems
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Characteristics of the Continental Systems
• The civil code: BGB; CC; ABGB; BW, etc.
• What is a civil code? • The legal-cultural importance of
codification.• The systematic importance of
codification• The ”material” importance of
codification
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Continental and Scandinavian Law Compared
• Again: Sweden (Scandinavia): No civil code
• Many areas of civil law lack legislation
• General legal principles without (clear) statutory support
• Difficult to find systematic coherence
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Why Scandinavian law is not like the common law systems
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Common Law
• Judgemade law • The idea of ”leading cases”• ”Distinguishing”
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Common Law and Scandinavian (Swedish) Law
Compared• The use of analogies in Swedish law
as a basis for general legal principles• The “loyalty” to Parliament of the
Supreme Court• Preparatory works
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Concluding Remarks on Scandinavian Legal Method
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…looking back
• General legal principles and analogies
• The use of preparatory works• The uneasy place of constitutional
arguments
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The Heritage from the Scandinavian Legal Realists
• The Scandinavian legal realist movement• Hägerström – founder of the Uppsala-
school• Olivecrona & Lundstedt (Swedish)• Alf Ross (Denmark)
***On the relationship with American legal
realism
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Tenets of Scandinavian Legal Realism
• Emotivism• Non-Cognitivism• Moral anti-realism (”value nihilism”)
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Consequences for legal analysis
• Vicious circles and empty legal language
• Repudiation of fundamental legal concepts: Rights, wrongfulness (”Rechtswidrigkeit“), etc.
• The notion of ”justice”