The Scandinavian Legal Family

8/10/2019 The Scandinavian Legal Family

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The Scandinavian Legal Family -An IntroductionMrten Schultz (LLD)

Faculty of Law, Stockholm University;Stockholm Centre for Commercial Law


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Todays Lecture

Introduction to Swedish/Scandinavian law Characteristics of Scandinavian civil law

Why Scandinavian law is not like thecontinental, civil law systems Why Scandinavian law is not like the

common law systems The Scandinavian approach in the era ofglobalization (Europeanization)


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Introduction to Todays Lecture

Civil law (patrimonial law) wheredifferences are most apparent

(Public law and criminal law, an exampleof a Swedish freedom of press andwhistle blower protection)

Emphasis on Swedish 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 ConstitutionalStructure 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 CivilLaw


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Introduction to Scandinavian CivilLaw

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 MadeLaw

Swedish civil law: A patchwork oflegislation and general principles

On the notion of general principles in thiscontext

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 goodsact (kplagen), consumer protectionlegislation

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 thecontinental systems


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Characteristics of the ContinentalSystems

The civil code: BGB; CC; ABGB; BW, etc. What is a civil code?

The legal-cultural importance ofcodification. The systematic importance of codification

The material importance of codification


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Continental and Scandinavian LawCompared

Again: Sweden (Scandinavia): No civilcode

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 thecommon 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 abasis for general legal principles

The loyalty to Parliament of the SupremeCourt

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 constitutionalarguments


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The Heritage from theScandinavian Legal Realists

The Scandinavian legal realist movement Hgerstrm founder of the Uppsala-school Olivecrona & Lundstedt (Swedish) Alf Ross (Denmark)

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On the relationship with American legal realism


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Tenets of Scandinavian LegalRealism

Emotivism Non-Cognitivism

Moral anti- realism (value nihilism)


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Consequences for legalanalysis

Vicious circles and empty legal language Repudiation of fundamental legal

concepts: Rights, wrongfulness(Rechtswidrigkeit ), etc.

The notion of justice

The Scandinavian Legal Family

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