Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - First part - III. Constitution and Administration - 1. Constitution - Historical Account and present Constitution, by E. Hildebrand, Ph. D., Chief of the National Record Office, Stockholm
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178
iii. CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION OF SWEDEN.
The Riksdag also exercises control over judges, officials, and civil
servants, through a special law officer, who is chosen annually, the
Solicitor General of the Riksdag (Justitieombudsman). It is his business,
not only to watch over the manner in which the law is administered
and to propose measures for improvement therein, but also to provide
against judges and public officials infringing upon the rights of private
individuals. If he is of opinion that such has been the case, it is
incumbent upon him to summon the person in question before a court to
have the matter judicially sifted. Private individuals, too, have the
right of laying their case before the »Justitieombudsman», if they
consider that they have been treated unjustly at the hands of a judge or a
public official.
Furthermore, the Cabinet Ministers are responsible for the discharge
of their duties to the Riksdag. The forms for the exactment of this
responsibility are detailed at great length in the Constitution Act, and
an account of them will be given below, but they have now in part
become obsolete. Actually, the parliamentary form of government has
gradually come to prevail in Sweden as elsewhere, and no government
at the present day can subsist unless it enjoy the confidence of the
Riksdag. Especially in regard to the choice of the Prime Minister,
has it become the rule to appoint a representative of those political
opinions to which, at the time, the majority in the two chambers of
the Riksdag adhere.
The prescribed forms in the Constitution Act concerning the responsibility
of ministers are as follows. During the progress of each session of the Riksdag,
the minutes of cabinet proceedings are handed over to a special committee of
the Riksdag, the Constitution Committee, which has to report to the Riksdag
after a perusal of the same. If now the committee discover that any of the
King’s advisers has not discharged the duties of his office »with zeal,
impartiality, and ability», the committee does notify the fact to the Riksdag, who in its
turn can demand of the King his dismissal. This demand, however, the King is
free to disregard if he so deem. If, again, the committee discover that any of
the King’s advisers has acted at variance with the fundamental laws of the realm,
or with the public law, or has abetted infringement of the same, or omitted to
make remonstrances against such infringement, or has countersigned, in his
capacity as head of his department, any resolution at variance with the
Constitution Act — the committee shall summon him before a Court of impeachment
(Riksrätt). The composition of this court is fixed in advance and is of a very
peculiar character, inasmuch as a number of public officials of high station
constitute it. — Of all these obsolete regulations, the only one that really can
be said to survive is the perusal of the minutes of the cabinet proceedings, whereby
an exceedingly effective control is undoubtedly exercised upon the conduct of
government business. In cases where serious comments are made — a thing that,
however, has very rarely occurred in recent times — the minister so attacked
will sometimes resign of his own accord. The other measures, as above related,
have not been put in practice for several decades.
The members of the High Court of Justice are also in a certain and pretty
peculiar manner responsible to the Riksdag, which possesses the right of
determining by means of a special committee, called the Committee of Opinion (Opinions-
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