The Role of the Supreme Courts in Scandinavia

Abstract

This article1 covers the role of the Supreme Courts in the “Scandinavian” countries. In the Scandinavian meaning of the word, “Scandinavia” connotes only Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, but internationally, the same term is often used to describe a geographical area including Finland and Iceland as well. In this essay, “Scandinavia” is equivalent to “the five Nordic countries.” The next part, Section 2, contains a general background and some similarities and differences regarding Scandinavian procedure(s) and the role of the Supreme Courts. Section 3 is a discussion and analysis of two general questions: what purposes (“public” and “private”) are the Supreme Courts intended to achieve, and what purposes are they really achieving in practice? The analysis is made against the background of the role of courts and the four purposes of procedure in general. Section 4 contains a short summary and some concluding remarks. In Section 5, the factual background is added as an Appendix.