Thomas Bodström was Justice Minister in the Swedish government of the Social Democrats until 2006, and was well known for his high profile efforts to tighten rape laws in Sweden. So who is it now, still a MP, who is the plaintiff’s attorney (mÃ¥lsägarbiträde) in the high profile rape case of Tito Beltran in Ystad? Well, that would be Bodström who has started to take on cases again now the Social Democrats are in opposition and he’s no longer a minister. You would think that being chair of the Justice Committee in the Riksdagen would be enough to keep him occupied, but no, Thomas is trying out the laws that he wrote… So will Bodström be interpreting the law in the way it is written, or how he wanted it to be interpreted when he wrote it? And how much influence will Bodström’s former role have over the judge? It’s not as bad as Beltran claims (“worse than Chile during the dictatorship“) but I wonder how many countries would be happy to have such a blurring of the boundaries between everyday lawmaking and court trials?
So why, I started to wonder, is no-one making a fuss about this? Well because – you guessed it – the opposition have been at it too. Peter Althin was the defence attorney for the Anna Lindh murder trial, defending Mijailo Mijailović. Althin is a MP for the Christian Democrats (now in government, then in opposition).
This is how the Swedish criminal government is working for the right of freedom of speech and the right of meetings and demonstrations!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-NFBe8HfHM
http://corruptio.blogg.se
Read about the assassination attempts on journalist who revealed corruption in Sweden. Swedish involvement in Afghan heroin trade, justice corruption, assassinations by the government and secret police etc etc
http://corruptio.blogg.se
Thomas Bodström gave the order to public prosecutor Christer Johansson in 2001 that cover up the involvement of the illegal informers that has been selling confiscated weapons from the police house to “criminals”. Read about the biggest scandal in Swedish history… http://www.corruptio.blogg.se
did I say that the Swedish case is right?
In reply to Justin: they might practice in the UK, but would those MP-lawyers make the same amount of fuss about the cases as Bodstr̦m is doing (see the links Рthey are to articles in English).
In reply to Giacomo – just because somewhere else is worse that doesn’t make the Swedish case right.
this is nothing compared to what happens in Italy…
A number of current MPs and peers from both Labour and the Conservatives are still practicing lawyers. It isn’t particularly rare in my experience. I suppose they say that it just gives them another perspective on the major politico-legal issues…