The assassination of...the 'Rule of Law' in Sweden

The Swedish Migration Agency,this week, issued a statement confirming their “legal view that there are ‘safe’ areas in Afghanistan” to which young asylum seekers (who came here at the invitation of 2 Swedish Prime Ministers) can be deported.This is in clear opposition to masses of expert opinion and reports which clearly show that a war has been raging in Afghanistan for many years and the escalation of civilian casualties has never, even at the height of American troop presence in the tens of thousands, been as high as these last 3 years. This data is from a Swedish reasearch (click here)

Deportations on these terms are usually known as ‘Refoulement’ and are contrary to conventions agreed and signed by Sweden over many, many decades.

Much is made in the corridors of power of the ‘legality’ of what is done. The Rule of Law is paramount is the prime argument.

What, however, is the situation when that ‘rule of law’ contradicts existing laws or when that ‘quoted law’ does not meet the required standards of juris prudence in a modern western democracy? What is the situation when that ‘law’ is obtained illegally, illegally as defined by all normally accepted definitions of independent judiciary?

Justice and democracy require a number of basic foundations. The first of these foundations in a modern western democracy is - an Independent Judiciary. That means a judiciary that is free from political interference and influence. There are enough Swedish academic reports which illustrate the ‘politicisation of the courts’ here in Sweden

A second foundation is that old saying,’Justice shall not only be done, it must be seen to be done’. In other words, transparency. A ‘court’ where a full verbatim transcript is NOT made and NOT available fails to meet the requirement of transparency and denies to the defendant any meaningful route to appeal. In other words, no checks are built into the system to allow for proper legal control and censure of actions by a Government or Government Department that would otherwise be regarded as ‘Contempt of Court’ in a normal legal system.

In such a scenario there is NO RULE OF LAW. There is ‘pretend justice’.A ‘potatismos’ law is not a law, it just looks like one!

I am not here discussing IMMIGRATION POLITICS.

I am discussing the failure of Sweden - a modern western democracy with a PR reputation of being humanitarian and just - to correct the situation endemic in some areas of ‘law enforcement’ that fail to meet the basic fundamental criteria of justice.

The ‘rule of law’ fails when that ‘law’ does not meet the required standards. This can be easily illustrated by the confusion and dissent caused from a law this year, commonly known as the ‘gymnasie law’.

That the ‘rule of law’ is prostituted and debased by ‘Migration Courts’ that are both politicised and contradict Sweden’s own ‘Rules for Court Procedures’ (1999) is a betrayal of the requirements of a modern democracy.

As Gandhi said, ‘ there are unjust laws as there are unjust men’.

SO WHAT?

Well, I would ask Swedes to ask themselves a very simple couple of questions:

1. When Swedish young people in our schools hear and learn of what is happening is so-called courts, how much respect do you think they carry for the rest of their life for ‘the rule of law’?

2. At what point can you trust any government enough to allow for the ‘rule of law’ and the ‘modern concepts of justice’ to be surrendered? Law,Justice, are the citizens only guarantee of freedom.

As one of the most respected Think Tanks in the world has stated:

“For the Rule of Law to be present, good laws are required,not just strict adherence to government enforcement of bad laws”.

Cato Institute

And in respect of Immigration Law, the Cato Institute observes as follows:

 There is clearly adequate evidence from reputable Swedish  sources that support the view that the present system does NOT meet these requirements but,indeed, falls so short of them as to be directly and fairly comparable to systems in some 3^rd world countries or systems extant in Europe 80 years ago.