As some of you may have read, Sweden has fast-tracked a new temporary law concerning Covid restrictions. The law will be rubber-stamped by the swedish parliament tomorrow friday january the 8th. It will be in effect from january 10 2021 to september 31st 2021. Below follows a summary overview.
The laws intent is to "plug the holes" in current legislation. See my previus post for a summary ( https://forums.lockdownsceptics.org/viewtopic.php?p=6533#p6533 ).
Let me begin by clarifying that the gov't still cannot lockdown society sensu strictu.
But it will be henceforth be able to impose legally compulsory regulations regarding opening hours, safety distance and visitor restrictions on museums, camping grounds, public parks, libraries, public baths, public beaches, gyms, shops, malls and similar as long as these are public places or publicly accessible places. It will also be possible to impose limits on venues that commercially rent space for private events.
The law is "sneaky" though, as it opens up for "other measures to avoid the spreading of infection": by which they mean the ability of the gov't to impose masks in indoor settings. Mask wearing may be in conflict with other laws depending on the cited reason.
Regulations regarding restricted and well defined areas of publicly accessible land (beaches, parks and similar) are only allowed if there is a tangible risk of crowding and does not impede the constitutional right of freedom of movement or personal freedom.
Admittance to to he above spaces cannot be forbidden or blocked but you may be evicted by police or security guards if you disobey regulations put in place (formally correct) in accordance to this law.
The only situation when a private citizen may be fined is if they break group size limits for defined public places. As only police and specially ordained security guards can arrest you for offences against the above I wonder how they expect people to comply.
The law has introduced a weird complication regarding group size by defining the minimum size as a household by which they mean: people cohabiting or being related and in regular contact or in regular contact by some professional reason (this is mentioned in the proposition pages 53-54). I'll love to see what happens when an extended family of 20 requires to be let in.
Group size limits do not apply in work settings.
The gov't will also technically have the ability to interdict public transport and flights, but that is also in direct conflict with the constitutional right of freedom of movement for everyone not owning a car so we'll se what happens.
Supervision is delegated to the the county administrative board.
Thank you for the summary. Notwithstanding the details of the new law, it still sounds as if your constitutional shield against the kind of arbitrary and authoritarian laws introduced elsewhere is much stronger than in other nations.
I'm not knowledgeable on Sweden's legislative process, but are there also constitutional safeguards built in to that to avoid the lockdown by ministerial diktat we have in the UK?
Yes "rule by minister" is not allowed in Sweden.
Ministerial rule
Technically, and slightly simplified, ministries and agencies dependent on them have to follow an "appropriation warrant/mandate letter" that specifies the budget and sets forth basic jurisdiction and prioritized goals (nothing unexpected here). The role of the minister is to ensure that the civil servant staff of the ministry complies. But the minister is never allowed to interpret law or change what is set forth in the warrant/letter (as those are based upon what the parliaments decisions) nor to interfere in the day to day workings (how it applies the law or decides in a specific cases) of a gov't agency/administrative authority/local authority.
See https://www.regeringen.se/other-languages/english---how-sweden-is-governed
State of emergency in Swedish law
The Swedish constitution does not allow for peace-time state of emergencies. Each legal statute (law) is supposed to contain provisions for peace time emergencies (the principle of "författningsberedskap"). "As opposed to other countries where the government can on its own declare a state of emergency, the Swedish parliament has to give the government additional powers (i.e. the organ triggering the power is different)". This does not prevent the parliament from giving the gov't extraordinary power, but those powers have to be proportional to the threat presented (the principle of proportionality). In my opinion all of the measures hitherto taken in Sweden have been exaggerated and fanned by the flames of panic and hysteria. Covid is nothing near a dangerous crisis, especially if analyzed in a historical context. Yes the complications of the disease has meant slightly higher ICU admittance, especially in spring, but after WWII this has occured now and again during other ILI epidemics and will occur again.
Here is a link to an article on the panic theme (in swedish): https://timbro.se/smedjan/paniken-spred-sig-snabbare-an-viruset .
I may also point out, as I forgot to mention this in the original posting, that a similar temporary law as the above described new law was in effect may through june but never used.
For a in depth review of the handling of Covid in the Scandinavian countries see the Swedish law journal Covid-19 issue (in swedish): https://svjt.se/tema/covid-19 .
I keep getting pop ups on my phone desperate for me to read about the covid 19 failures in sweden..I ignore it..
😀
Update
Sweden will start requiring a Corona-test certificate of EU-citizens that are not Swedish citizens or not living in Sweden from saturday (february 6 2021) not older than 48 hours upon landing. There is still no information about how a traveler can prove this.
The requirement is currently in vigour until april 1st 2021.
Athletes, researchers, truck drivers, asyl seekers, important personnel, people living in adjoining countries but working in sweden and a couple of other groups are exempt).
