The (Un)Political Lay Judge System in Sweden - An Interview Study of Lay Judges’ Views on Their Roles and The Lay Judge System, from a Perspective of Politicization
(2021) STVM25 20202Department of Political Science
- Abstract
- Lay judges are used in the Swedish courts to attain a democratic representation of judges, but the system has received criticism for giving weight to political affiliation in a role that ought to be unpolitical. The aim of this study is to investigate politicization of the laymen system through lay judges’ own perspectives of their roles, and their views of the structure of the lay judge system. Hence, this study will examine whether, and then in what ways, party-political views, and ideologies of lay judges in court have been noticed. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions were conducted with lay judges in Malmö. To analyze the empirical data, the concept of politicization is used, with which categorizations of the interview... (More)
- Lay judges are used in the Swedish courts to attain a democratic representation of judges, but the system has received criticism for giving weight to political affiliation in a role that ought to be unpolitical. The aim of this study is to investigate politicization of the laymen system through lay judges’ own perspectives of their roles, and their views of the structure of the lay judge system. Hence, this study will examine whether, and then in what ways, party-political views, and ideologies of lay judges in court have been noticed. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions were conducted with lay judges in Malmö. To analyze the empirical data, the concept of politicization is used, with which categorizations of the interview data were made. The analysis shows that all interviewees, except one, view their roles as unpolitical. However, politicization exists in the lay judge system, since most of the lay judges have experienced party-political affiliations shown in court through statements by other lay judges. The fact that it exists is problematic since it might lead to unfair and biased trials depending on which party representatives that appear in court. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9033753
- author
- Jansson, Sandra LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- STVM25 20202
- year
- 2021
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Lay judges, lay judge system, politicization, politicized courts, interview study
- language
- English
- id
- 9033753
- date added to LUP
- 2021-05-25 12:59:48
- date last changed
- 2021-05-25 12:59:48
@misc{9033753, abstract = {{Lay judges are used in the Swedish courts to attain a democratic representation of judges, but the system has received criticism for giving weight to political affiliation in a role that ought to be unpolitical. The aim of this study is to investigate politicization of the laymen system through lay judges’ own perspectives of their roles, and their views of the structure of the lay judge system. Hence, this study will examine whether, and then in what ways, party-political views, and ideologies of lay judges in court have been noticed. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions were conducted with lay judges in Malmö. To analyze the empirical data, the concept of politicization is used, with which categorizations of the interview data were made. The analysis shows that all interviewees, except one, view their roles as unpolitical. However, politicization exists in the lay judge system, since most of the lay judges have experienced party-political affiliations shown in court through statements by other lay judges. The fact that it exists is problematic since it might lead to unfair and biased trials depending on which party representatives that appear in court.}}, author = {{Jansson, Sandra}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{The (Un)Political Lay Judge System in Sweden - An Interview Study of Lay Judges’ Views on Their Roles and The Lay Judge System, from a Perspective of Politicization}}, year = {{2021}}, }