Eleven people who were charged with violent rioting after Rasmus Paludan’s Koran burning in Rinkeby last spring were acquitted just before Christmas in Solna district court.
As evidence, the police and prosecutors had a film where the men are seen throwing stones, but despite the evidence, the men were acquitted. It is doubtful whether they participated in a public gathering, the district court believes, which is required to be convicted of violent riot.
The outcome caused Rickard Jomshof (SD), chairman of the justice committee, to react. “The madness continues,” he writes on Twitter.
Acquittals “a devilish joke”
The statement has provoked strong reactions. Among other things, Anne Ramberg, former secretary general of the Swedish Bar Association, believes that Jomshof is not suitable as chairman of the justice committee.
“In his position and as a legislator to comment disparagingly on the application of law by independent courts in individual cases is not only inappropriate. It reveals a lack of respect for the rule of law,” she writes on Twitter.
Even the current Secretary General, Mia Edwall Insulander, has reacted to the statement.
“Respect Sweden’s constitution”
On Wednesday, Jomshof tweeted again.
“The acquittals are a hell of a joke, to say the least, and it’s my damned responsibility to react to this. I’m not going to be silenced.”
The statement prompted the justice committee’s deputy chairman Ardalan Shekarabi (S) to highlight.
“I urge my colleague in the Bureau to respect Sweden’s constitution and the independence of the courts,” writes Shekarabi on Twitter, and urged the government to make the same demands on Jomshof.
No direct consequences
According to Joakim Nergelius, professor of jurisprudence at Örebro University, Richard Jomshof is out on slippery ice.
– What he is doing is of course very inappropriate, he says.
In Sweden, the principle of separation of powers prevails, a cornerstone of Swedish state administration which, among other things, means that politicians are not allowed to interfere in how courts rule in individual cases.
– Ministers who comment on individual authority decisions violate the constitution, so if he had been in the government it would have been outright illegal. Now he doesn’t do that, but it’s still startling, says Joakim Nergelius.
– It is difficult to see any direct consequences. Ministers of State can be censured by the constitutional committee, but KU does not review Jomshof.