Introduction

• Author: Lappalainen, Paul
• Pages: 14-15

14

INTRODUCTION

The national legal system

The power to enact laws is vested in the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag). Au thorities at the

regional and local levels have no comp etence to enact legislation and do not issue local

ordinances with direct relevance to the two directives. However, they can undertake

actions that promote equality and counteract discrimination within the framework of their

mandates.

One key feature of Swedish law is that it is based t o a great extent on written law, while

case law plays a lesser but increasingly important role.

In practice, the right to initiate legislation lies predominantly with the Government. Its

right to make legislative proposals to Parliam ent is guaranteed by the Constitution. 33 The

process starts with a lega l inquiry, after which th e results are sent out to relevant parties

for comments on th e proposed legislation. The Government then formulates a bill

specifying and explaining the proposed legislation, includ ing reflections on the comments.

The Council on L egislation (Lagrådet), compo sed of justices fr om the Supreme Court and

the Admi nistrative Supreme Court, is then consulted on the constitutiona lity an d

consistency of laws. The Council’s opinions are not binding. The bill is then submitted to

the Parliament. The report from the Parliament’s standing committee is debated in the

Parliament. If the re are political differences, the t wo sides normally suggest different

wordings concerning the proposed legislation. Formally, there is the main proposal in the

standing committee and a reservation or reservations by the minority in the committee.

The various formulations are put to a vote. The majority side’s arguments in the standing

committee and the Government bill (if the Government wins the vote) are th us regarded

as ‘approved’ by the Parliament.34 Therefore, these tw o documents have considerable

importance when interpreting the law.

The application of the Discrimination Act is divided between the Labour Court and the

general court system (district courts, courts of appeal and the Supreme Court). The Labour

Court deals with all aspects of the employer-employee relationship. It i s a single-instance

system in cases where the worker is represented by his or her trade union and the

employer has a collective agreement with that union or, in certain cases, where the Equality

Ombudsman (DO) represents a claimant in accordance with Chapter 6, Sections 1-2 of the

Discrimination Act. Otherwise, it is a two -instance system, with the district courts

constituting the first instance court with a right of appeal to the Labour Court.

Collective agreements cover 90 % o f workers on the Swedish labour market and are very

important in setting the rules.35 There is no national minimum wage. Generally, work as a

civil servant is governed by contracts and collective ag reements in lar gely the same way

as in private employm ent. Certain special rules apply to public employment, especially in

the state sector. These mainly concern the recruitment process, where some constitutional

rules on objectivity apply.

The general court system deals wi th everything that is not dealt with by a special court.

Discrimination in all areas except the labour market is thus dealt with in the general court

system. It is a three-instance system, starting with the district court. In civil cases, the

33 Swedish Instrument of Government (Regeringsformen 1974:152), Chapter 4, Article 4, adopted

28.02.1975. Sometimes the opposition parties agree on a piece of legislation that the Government does not

want.

34 Formally, it is only the report of the standing committee that is being debated but, as the Government

almost always repeats what is said in the Government bill and most often wins, in practice it is the

Government bill that is used as the main interpretation source, as it is much more detailed.

35 See Eurofound (2017), Living and working in Sweden, 18.10.2017, at:

https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/country/sweden#collective-bargaining.