In a case about a residence permit, all three jurors were from the Sweden Democrats and decided on deportation, against the will of the apolitically appointed legal judge.
In 2023, just over 100,000 cases were decided by courts with three judges, according to the Norwegian Judicial Agency.
Jurors are appointed by parties, but since they are supposed to be impartial, no one in the court knows which party they belong to. Therefore, there are no official statistics on how often all three jurors come from the same party.
Chance rules
According to statistics professor Tom Britton at Stockholm University, mathematically it must have happened just over a thousand times last year.
Mårten Schultz, professor of law, is one of several critics that SVT has spoken to who want to abolish the system.
– I dare say that a large percentage of lawyers are not satisfied with it, says Mårten Schultz.
In the courts there is also always an apolitical legal judge. But if all three jurors vote against the lawyer, the jurors win.
Environmental activist was acquitted
An example where party politics may have influenced the outcome is a case last year where an environmental activist was acquitted for blocking a road. The jurors from the Left Party and the Social Democrats acquitted the accused with reference to the fact that the climate requires emergency measures.
The legal judge and a liberal juror wanted to acquit, but with the votes two against two, the court would rather acquit than convict, so the activist was acquitted.
– Just the fact that ordinary citizens know that jurors are politically appointed undermines trust in the courts, says law professor Claes Sandgren.
– It is probably naive to believe that party affiliation does not affect the judges’ positions. A rule that prevented all three jurors from coming from the same party would probably be good. That would create clarity, says Eric Bylander, professor of law at Uppsala University.
But the chairperson of the National Association of Commissioners, Linda Ingvarsson (S), sees no problem.
– We jurors manage to stick to the law and ignore politics. It is an excellent system.