Procedural Law
Procedural law regulates the procedures for the administration of justice, and what requirements should apply in this process. The research deals with how the rules are interpreted, how evidence should be evaluated, and how the law acts as an instrument for resolving conflicts.
Research in procedural law at the Faculty of Law focuses on arbitration law, in which the parties settle out of court, and particularly on issues concerning evidence, primarily in criminal cases. DNA evidence is a relatively new phenomenon, and an important question concerns how courts should evaluate DNA analyses. Another subarea concerns the use of supporting evidence, for example, when it is one person's word against another's in rape cases. Scandinavian research in evidence theory is in a leading position internationally, and the department collaborates extensively with universities in Norway.
A specific expertise has developed in the area of assault crimes, such as domestic violence and rape, through several projects funded by the EU and the Crime Victim Fund. An ongoing EU project compares rape crimes in a number of European countries. One of the questions this project seeks to answer is why Sweden has forty times as many reported cases of rape as Greece.
Many projects are interdisciplinary. Collaboration takes place with researchers in psychology, forensic psychiatry, sociology, and political science, etc. The department also conducts empirical studies of its own – there are regular run-throughs of preliminary investigations and sentences in order to collect information, and students working on their degree projects often participate in these projects. Furthermore, the department continuously updates the classic work in procedural law, Ekelöf's Rättegång I-V ('Trial I-V'), and researchers in procedural law regularly participate in the training of lawyers, judges, prosecutors and police.
Web editor:
Paul Parker
Last updated:
November 23, 2011
Source: Communications Office
