Constitutional matters

Martin Westmont (SD)

Mr. Speaker! We are debating here and now the Committee on the Constitution's report KU30 Constitutional Issues.

The report deals with a large number of motions concerning everything from the system of government and EU cooperation to party financing, parliamentary work, and various issues regarding constitutional regulation. It is, therefore, a broad report that touches upon the very foundations of our constitutional order. For that very reason, it is important to have a fundamental perspective clear in mind: Constitutions shall not be changed lightly. They shall be stable, predictable, and have broad popular support.

When we change the foundations of the state system, it must be done with great deliberation. At the same time, it does not mean that the constitution is something static. Society changes, and sometimes the constitutional rules also need to be reviewed. The government's proposal on how the constitution can be changed therefore risks locking our democracy into a system where a minority can block important measures that a majority of the Swedish people want to implement.

A third of the members of the Riksdag are given a veto right and, in practice, the power to block changes that are good for Sweden and Sweden's citizens. We risk being unable to implement important constitutional changes even though a majority of the Swedish people just wish for it to happen. It will create a rigid system that is not in step with the development of society.

Mr. Speaker! Some of the motions addressed in the committee report concern the fundamental design of the constitutional system, not least the question of the monarchy. From several parties, proposals are repeated to abolish the monarchy and introduce a republic. That discussion is not new. It has been conducted in the Riksdag for a long time.

The Sweden Democrats do not share that view. We see the important work that His Majesty the King does for Sweden, where he contributes to creating cooperation and trade between countries and increased exports for Swedish companies, which in turn creates more jobs. Here, His Majesty the King makes a great contribution that in no way should be diminished.

The Swedish monarchy has for a long time functioned well within the framework of a democratic and parliamentary system. Since the Instrument of Government of 1974, the head of state has primarily ceremonial and representative duties. Political power lies with the Riksdag and the government. The head of state stands outside of party politics and functions as a unifying symbol for our culture, our history, and the Swedish people as a whole. The Royal House is a part of the Swedish soul, and so it shall also remain.

Mr. Speaker! The report also addresses several issues linked to the EU cooperation. Here is an important principled discussion on how Sweden's relationship with the EU should be regulated constitutionally. The Sweden Democrats have long been clear that Sweden's membership in the EU must ultimately rest on the people's support. Therefore, we argue that membership should not be locked into the constitution.

EU cooperation is fundamentally based on intergovernmental agreements between sovereign states. Sweden must be able to renegotiate the terms or – should it become relevant – leave the cooperation without first having to carry out extensive constitutional amendments. It is fundamentally about democratic freedom of action and about ensuring that power ultimately lies with the Swedish people.

Mr. Speaker! Another central issue in the report concerns how democracy can be revitalized. Transparency and clear rules are important. At the same time, we must be careful not to create regulatory frameworks that in practice limit democratic engagement or make it more difficult for new political movements to establish themselves.

Regulatory frameworks should contribute to openness and accountability, not to entrench established structures or hinder opposition forces from operating within the democratic system. This can involve the possibility of national referendums and various forms of citizen influence. These are issues that concern the relationship between representative democracy and direct-democratic elements.

The Sweden Democrats argue that referendums on certain issues can be an important complement to representative democracy. In matters of particularly great constitutional or national importance, it is reasonable to let the Swedish people have their say on a matter of great importance for Sweden, for example the issue I previously raised, regarding in what way constitutional amendments can be carried out in Sweden. It strengthens the legitimacy of the decisions and contributes to increasing the trust for the political system as a whole among the general public.

An important conclusion of the proceedings in the Committee on the Constitution is that many of the issues raised in the motions have already been analyzed on several occasions previously. In many cases, the Committee has chosen to adhere to previous positions. This applies, for example, to questions regarding the monarchy, the head of state's immunity, and various parts of the succession order. This is fundamentally reasonable. Constitutional changes should not be made without broad consensus and a clear need.

At the same time, we shall engage in a debate on how our institutions function and how they can be developed to reflect the era we live in. That discussion is important, and it is a discussion that the Sverigedemokraterna welcomes.

The Swedish system of government is based on a few fundamental principles: democracy, parliamentarism, and the rule of law. The Riksdag is the people's primary representative, and all public power emanates from the people. It is an order that has served Sweden well. But for it to continue to do so, we must also safeguard the legitimacy of our institutions, ensure transparency, and be open to reforms when they are truly needed.

The Sweden Democrats will therefore also continue to pursue issues that strengthen democracy, give citizens more power over which path Sweden should take in the future, and safeguard Sweden's self-determination in all situations.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Hans Ekström (S)

Mr. Speaker! Constitutional laws, rules of the game, and constitutional issues should be handled boringly, that is to say, slowly, carefully, and with deliberation. Broad majorities should be sought. But an interesting debate must also be conducted on necessary changes, where thoughts on what needs to be changed slowly emerge.

The opposite of slowness and boredom is actually destructive. If one rushes ahead and changes the rules of the game, others can also run very fast, and then the credibility and trust in a society are damaged.

The referral we are dealing with today contains some bold proposals from various parties. Some of the bold proposals come from my party.

We raise, among other things, the issue of a ban on anonymous and foreign contributions, which was addressed in the 2023 transparency committee. We believe that the credibility of democracy is built on avoiding improper influence on parties.

In the same way, transparency is needed regarding where money for politics and parties comes from. This also applies to formally independent lobbyists. We see an increasing tendency that political campaigns are not only run through political parties. We have things such as Timbro – formally independent agencies that run direct party-political campaigns, partly financed by state and municipal companies.

It must naturally be questioned whether it is reasonable for the citizens' money to be put into party-political propaganda. Such a debate should be conducted.

Another area that needs transparency is how ministers and secretaries of state proceed to new positions.

It is clear that one acquires a great deal of very valuable information during one's time as a minister or secretary of state. If one proceeds directly and capitalizes on that through large incomes from companies or organizations, it is clear that the legitimacy of the state and for politics is undermined. It is a serious problem, and stricter rules are needed in that area. This also applies to other state officials.

Finally, I want to highlight the need for a ban for ministers and secretaries of state to trade individual shares. We see a number of such cases in this year's processing of the review cases.

It is clear that it undermines the citizens' trust in the state if individual ministers sit and receive information and at the same time, almost during government meetings, trade with shares. It is not acceptable. It should be prohibited. Therefore, I move for approval of reservation 14.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Ulrik Nilsson (M)

Mr. Speaker! This is actually impossible, because just as previous speakers have said, the type of decision we are now discussing often requires significantly more reflection than making a decision based on one of the 83 motions that we have from the general motion period. This affects so much more. It is, as already stated, the conditions for how we can govern Sweden and the conditions for how we can act to constantly develop the country.

It is easy, in some kind of formalistic sense, to advocate for approval of the Committee on the Constitution's proposal and thereby rejection of all motions. But perhaps we should not stop there, because the debate is at least as important as the decision in this matter. There are important principled questions, and each of us can, from our respective sides, highlight our core issues – not so much to obtain the decision as to obtain the debate, precisely in an attempt to broaden the perspective.

Mr. Speaker! Let me highlight three of the points that are here. I could have highlighted more, but there are three places where I feel there is reason to make a slightly larger point.

The first point concerns the constitutional system. It has already been mentioned here. One can certainly say that if we were to do something today, perhaps it would not look exactly like that which came to develop in Sweden from the 1300s. It may well be so, but at the same time, it has served us well. It has served us well to have a monarchy that we can all unite around. It is an apolitical organization that has survived for many years and which carries very much of our history. Is it then time to replace it? The Americans sometimes say: If it ain´t broken, don´t fix it. For me, this applies to a very high degree to the constitutional system. It needs to be something that stands strong and that is common.

The second point concerns Swedish democracy. It is the same principle there. We can express concern about changes. We can see that there may be threats. But let us never despair in the face of threats to such an extent that we say we cannot act and that it is not working!

It is we who must dare to have the debate about the threats. We must not believe that institutions will manage it. Above all, we must not rest on the fact that someone has built some defense for democracy, so that we can ignore debating democracy's values. If not we, who are elected, stand up for democracy's values, why do we think that someone else will?

That is why I always become a bit hesitant every time I hear proposals about creating this institution or this structure because politicians are unable to handle the situation. We should be able to judge whether the sender of a message is credible or not. We should be able to weigh the pros and cons, because otherwise, the question is what our role is. Is it to transform or transport a message that someone else has brought forward? No, I do not think so.

Furthermore, it is the case that the honest may possibly be very transparent, but I am waiting for the day when Putin's troll factories in transparency speak about the funding from the Russian state. I do not think we will see that.

Mr. Speaker! The third thing I want to bring up is a question that has been raised from various sides, namely what function constitutional laws have. Constitutional laws are, as has been said, fundamental rules of the game. Therefore, opinions that one can have different political views on should not be constitutionally protected. Everything we can have different opinions about should be open to discussion, and one should also be able to have those opinions gain traction. Then, one does not need to do everything quickly. Things can take time to implement. But it is a misconception that one should be able to protect one's opinions by placing them under constitutional protection. It is equally fundamentally incorrect if it is good opinions, i.e., what I think, as if it is bad opinions, i.e., what someone else thinks. It is fundamentally wrong.

That is why it is important that the constitutional laws adhere to the principles that must be guiding and that they also hold over time. That is also why it is a good arrangement that we are now introducing with a second decision with a qualified majority. It ensures that we have long-term support for the constitutional laws.

Mr. Speaker! I have now spoken for one minute and ten seconds, I see on the clock. I don't quite believe it, but I intend to go in for landing and say that I move for approval of the Committee on the Constitution's proposal for a decision in report KU30.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Hans Ekström (S)

Mr. Speaker! At the Speaker's request, I have requested a reply – but not to you, Ulrik, but actually to myself. I shall correct my reservation from number 14 to number 13. They have changed the numbers from KU's own documents to the Riksdag's print before the Chamber's consideration, so I stated the wrong number.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Ulrik Nilsson (M)

Mr. Speaker! I can only note that Hans Ekström chooses an unlucky number for his reservation.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Jessica Wetterling (V)

Mr. Speaker! I listened with interest to the previous speaker regarding this matter of disinformation, what one should believe and such. I also became a bit thoughtful: Had Ulrik only spoken for a minute? It felt like an eternity, and perhaps it was. Whether it was then Russian influence or just something else, we shall have to see.

I would like to begin by moving for approval of reservation 21. The reason why a previous speaker moved for approval of the wrong reservation may be that my party and the Social Democrats have coordinated on some reservations.

In this report on constitutional matters, we in Vänsterpartiet have many different reservations about the various proposals – "smart proposals," as some previous speaker said. I will, in any case, go through some of these briefly. I will not have time for all of them.

The previous speaker spoke about not trying to fix something that is not broken. But, Mr. Speaker, then I want to say that the majority of the proposals that Vänsterpartiet puts forward are because we consider this to be partly a broken system that needs to be fixed.

During the past year, information has emerged in several articles that various ministers, but also secretaries of state within the Government Offices, have held private shareholdings in companies or business areas that were simultaneously the subject of government decisions or other preparations. In some cases, one has had such bad luck as to have happened to buy shares on the same day, during a break, or a short time before a government decision was made.

Many of the decisions that the government makes have a direct or indirect impact on markets and companies. Therefore, the government, ministers, and secretaries of state are subject to a number of rules intended to prevent conflicts of interest and insider trading, including requirements to disclose financial interests and to refrain from participating in decisions where personal shareholdings could create conflicts of interest, precisely to ensure that the government acts in the public's best interest and not to favor other purposes, for example its own.

When several revelations occur in a short period concerning leading figures, for example ministers and secretaries of state, whose actions can arouse suspicions of conflict of interest and lack of judgment, it is worrying. In that case, it risks appearing as not just isolated mistakes but a systematic disregard of the responsibility that comes with the mandate in the Government Offices. When ministers participate in decisions that can benefit them personally or do not report their shareholdings, the trust in the entire government and the state risks being damaged.

For me and Vänsterpartiet, it is clear that we need new legislation in this area – because the system is broken – that prohibits ministers and secretaries of state from trading shares.

Mr. Speaker! For us, it is also clear that today's regulation of transition restrictions for ministers and secretaries of state needs to be reviewed. There is reason to review whether more should be covered by quarantine provisions.

When influential people quickly move from public assignments to private activities, suspicions of conflicts of interest can be raised. It can involve promises of future employment during ongoing assignments or that previous information held in one's political role can be exploited to the benefit of the new employer.

The question of the need for a regulation on transitions has been noted by, among others, the Council of Europe's anti-corruption body, Greco. We simply need to limit the revolving doors that exist today between the business sector and politics. It is about maintaining and safeguarding trust in the public sector. Even here, we in Vänsterpartiet believe that it needs to be legislated.

Mr. Speaker! We also consider that a stronger constitutional protection for the national minorities and the indigenous Sami, as well as the minority languages, should be investigated. A proposal on this is addressed in the committee report. The next debate concerns national minorities in particular, so I will not say much more about this now but will instead give a separate speech on that specific issue.

Mr. Speaker! Vänsterpartiet has two additional proposals that I intended to mention in this matter. They concern the need for constitutional protection for public ownership and for public service.

Today, private property rights are protected in the constitution, but there is a lack of protection for what we own together. Our collective ownership rights need to be strengthened, and a constitutional protection for common property should be introduced.

In recent years, politicians have sold off large parts of our common property. It concerns schools, health centers, pharmacies, apartments and much more. In several of these cases, the sell-offs have been made at clear underprices. They have simply discounted what was previously ours and what we owned collectively.

A trend in recent years has been that municipalities have used an arrangement based on selling properties or parts of them to private actors for a lump sum while simultaneously committing to lease back the very premises they have just sold, at high prices and with long-term contracts.

One of the most prominent examples is the culture house in Skellefteå, which the municipality sold for just over 1 billion. Every year, Skellefteå municipality pays almost 45 million in rent to the company it sold to in order to have access to its own culture house. When the lease expires in 50 years, Skellefteå municipality will have paid around 2.2 billion in rent, which is more than double what the municipality sold the culture house for. If this is not a really bad deal, I don't know what is, Mr. Speaker.

In conclusion: Our free, independent, and autonomous media constitute an important cornerstone in the construction of a stable democracy. In Sweden, there is a very long tradition of freedom of the press and freedom of expression, and today's media landscape contains a great diversity of privately and jointly owned TV and radio channels and newspapers.

It is through the jointly funded companies Sveriges Television, Sveriges Radio and Utbildningsradion – what we call public service – and their broad mandate that the population is assured of, among other things, impartial social information, news, entertainment and cultural experiences. Public service also has an important role in the preservation and revitalization of the Swedish minority languages.

That both journalism and public service as a whole stand independent in relation to politics is absolutely fundamental. We want to see a constitutional protection for public service, so that the companies can have long-term security and make independent decisions regarding their publications without worrying about political meddling.

A strong constitutional protection is not everything, however, as previous speakers have said. The economic resources also need to be secured. This week, we have unfortunately been reached by news of major cuts within public service. The background is both a too low budget for the coming eight years and increased costs for, among other things, technology development and digitalization, while there is a requirement to remain in the terrestrial network. 355 million needs to be saved. After TV4 stopped using the terrestrial network, SVT must bear the entire cost for an infrastructure that is necessary in the event of a major crisis or war.

This government is failing the viewers, Mr. Speaker, when it does not provide the money needed to fulfill the mandate that we have politically given SVT. These large cuts cannot come as a surprise to the government but must be seen as a deliberate choice, which I truly regret.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Gudrun Brunegård (KD)

Mr. Speaker! I would like to begin by moving for the approval of the proposal in the committee report and the rejection of the motions.

This is a comprehensive report with a large number of motions, which some previous speakers have also touched upon. I too will focus on precisely those parts that feel particularly important and urgent for me and the Christian Democrats.

There are few institutions around which the popular support is as great as it is for the monarchy and the Swedish royal house. Not everyone may have been raised with a mother as royalist as I am, but even many of those who officially would like to see Sweden as a republic find it difficult to deny that the royal house means a lot for Swedish cohesion and for the spreading of goodwill for Sweden internationally. One of the larger parties in the Riksdag has even written in its program that they want to abolish the monarchy, but I have never heard them talk about it publicly.

Among the motions in this report, one can see both those who de facto want to introduce a republic and those who want to increase the head of state's power, for example by having the head of state again become the one who proposes the prime minister to the Riksdag. I do not know what the Speaker says about that.

The Christian Democrats argue that the current system of government has great legitimacy and that the royal house has great importance for both creating national unity, not least in times of crisis, and contributing to embellishing the most everyday activities that are graced by a study visit or a royal presence at an inauguration. Of course, Sweden shall hold fast to the monarchy!

In this report, issues regarding membership in the EU are also addressed. The Christian Democrats are warm supporters of the EU. It should be noted that the so-called fathers of Europe – the Frenchman Robert Schuman, the Italian Alcide De Gasperi, and the German Konrad Adenauer – were all Christian Democrats. In light of the totalitarian regimes that had devastated Europe during the Second World War, they saw the need to build peace through free trade.

With duty-free trade and free movement for labor and goods, peace and prosperity would grow and provide motivation to resolve conflicts with the help of peaceful negotiations instead of with war, which had been Europe's curse for centuries. To this extent, the vision of the EU fathers has actually been fulfilled. EU countries have not initiated wars between one another but have resolved conflicts by peaceful means.

What binds the European Union together is not only the pursuit of peace and free trade but, above all, the common foundation of values: respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the principles of the rule of law, and respect for human rights. Societies shall be characterized by diversity, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity, and equality between women and men. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights describes the freedoms and rights that the EU recognizes every human being has: freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, the right to privacy, and the child's right to protection and care.

The annual reviews that are conducted are important for focusing on how the member states live up to what they have signed. As a result of these reviews, Sweden has established the Institute for Human Rights, which independently reviews how the state and its institutions live up to human rights.

We have also here in the chamber decided on a dormant constitutional amendment to strengthen the independence of the courts and to raise the threshold and reduce the risk of temporary majorities changing our Swedish constitutions and thereby undermining democracy. Given what we have seen in the world around us and how quickly democracy and the rule of law can be dismantled, these are very urgent reforms to protect Sweden from similar developments.

Mr. Speaker! Unfortunately, we see that there are countries within the European community that are moving away from these common values. It is therefore important that there is a possibility, through Article 7.2 of the EU Treaty, to establish that violations have been made and that there are various forms of sanctions against countries that do not comply with the jointly established rules. Not least the tools that exist to protect the principles of the rule of law are valuable for maintaining a common standard.

This is extremely important. A country that does not want to live up to the common values of the European community should not be there either. It is better to, through sanctions and fines, compel such a country to either adapt or voluntarily leave the union than for it to block the work for the other member states and for the candidate countries, who want nothing more than to enter the community.

The EU also needs to be more moderate at the same time and should not interfere in matters that the member states themselves handle better on their own. One such example is Swedish agriculture and forestry. At our latitudes, agriculture and forestry operate under completely different conditions than in the member states on the continent. Consequently, it also needs adapted regulatory frameworks.

Mr. Speaker! With these reflections, I thank you for the floor.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Malin Björk (C)

Mr. Speaker! I stand behind the Center Party's all reservations in the report – we have quite a few – but for the sake of time, I move for approval of only reservation 9 under point 18.

For the fourth consecutive spring, I stand in this rostrum to deliver a speech on the report Constitutional Issues. Before drafting my own speech for this year's theme, I looked back on the years that have passed and reflected on which themes I had chosen. Throughout all of them, the international situation has been a constant.

The motions, the proposals, that end up in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs are, in fact, ultimately about liberal democracy and how we uphold it. It has probably not escaped anyone in this committee, and hopefully not outside of it either, that liberal democracy in recent years has come under attack in many parts of the world.

It is a worrying development, to say the least, that we have received black and white every year that we who live in a full-fledged democracy are becoming fewer. In a globalized world, where Sweden has for a long time been an obvious part of the European community as a member of the EU, what is happening in the outside world is highly relevant to what is happening here with us in this country and in this assembly.

In the autumn of 2021, at the Center Party's convention here in the Stockholm area, I was present when the party passed a convention program titled A Stronger Liberal Democracy. It was my predecessor in the Committee on the Constitution, Linda Modig, who during the previous term was attentive to the developments in our global environment.

She then chose to conduct internal political work within our party, which resulted in a number of proposals on how we can strengthen our defense at home against the forces that want to undermine our democracy. For those do exist – we know that – not least from ill-intentioned states in our global environment.

The results of her work are still noticeable, as several of the proposals submitted then are still the Center Party's policy. Nothing has been done about these yet, and that is why there are so many reservations from us in this report.

Mr. Speaker! No, we are not Hungary. Nor are we the USA, which, in the latest report from the V-Dem Institute's liberal democracy index, fell like a stone in the ranking. Regardless of this, it would be naive to believe that Sweden is immune to the wave sweeping across the world, where authoritarian forces in several cases collaborate with strong economic ones.

We have entered a new era where the world order that has existed since the Second World War, and which we long took for granted, no longer applies. We therefore need to strengthen our work in this area to defend ourselves against the threats that exist both in the near term and in the long term.

It applies both in physical reality and in the alternative reality where more and more people spend their time, namely the digital one. The fact that many of us spend such a large part of our waking time in front of a screen and not here certainly hinders mutual dialogue and reaching mutual agreements with giving and taking.

We humans are biological beings, not digital, and much of what we base our decisions on concerns our impressions. Therefore, we actually need to look each other in the eye and need to take each other by the hand to create genuine interpersonal trust.

In order for us to be able to reach an agreement, we must begin by actually looking up, reflecting on what we see around us here, and preferably also outside this house, conduct a dialogue about it, identify societal problems and thereafter seek solutions. Unfortunately, I see that the conditions for such conversations in a digitized, mediatized era are becoming increasingly worse.

Mr. Speaker! Over the weekend, an interesting exchange of letters was published in Dagens Nyheter. It was an exchange of thoughts between former representatives for what were previously Sweden's two largest parties, the Social Democrats and the Moderates. For those of you who have not read it, I would advise you to do so. That text shows how people, and ultimately politicians, can meet and find unexpected friendship if there is a mutual openness for it. It is Anna Kinberg Batra and Håkan Juholt who meet through the written words.

Thus Anna writes in a letter: ”At the same time, I believe that politics, and democracy at its core, would need more people of flesh and blood. People who dare to take responsibility but also feel, hesitate, and make mistakes sometimes. In a time when the world map is being redrawn every day, we need leaders who dare to think for themselves and try new paths. But do we allow that?”

And Håkan answers: "I am convinced that detached politicians and unclear parties lead to a lack of interest in politics and a weaker democracy."

In another letter, Anna writes: ”We are already a minority in the world, those of us who live in functioning democracies, and we do not get that opportunity for free. It must be defended. The forces that want to question it are, in fact, strong.”

Håkan, who has just seen the concert film Epic with Elvis Presley – my advice to those of you who haven't seen it is, by the way: Do it – says that Elvis's version of Suspicious Minds in the film is like a blow to the solar plexus.

Håkan comments on this suspicion that Elvis expresses in the song, the suspicion towards our neighbor, with: "I mean that we shrank from being fellow human beings to becoming enemies. In irreconcilable camps, the ability to compromise disappears, and the understanding that compromise is democracy's most underrated building block."

Mr. Speaker! The reservation I have highlighted in this report concerns the role of the opposition, which we believe needs to be formalized. The reason for this is that a political decision-making process that is not regulated, but whose forms have been established in practice, can be exploited by a majority that in this way can override the opposition.

I do not know if Linda Modig, who was a member of the KU, had a ball of yarn. But during this mandate period, I have unfortunately seen that the Tidö parties have, in some cases, thrown practice overboard in several important contexts.

I sat myself in the constitutional commission that was appointed at the beginning of this mandate period, the 2023 freedom and rights committee. In one area, citizenship and how it can be revoked, it was already established in the Tidö Agreement what the government would submit for proposal.

When we submitted the report after a great rush in the committee, we had a broad majority on a certain change regarding the revocation of citizenship. But it was not that proposal that Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer spoke about at the subsequent press conference. It was held just before the party leaders were to have a debate here in the chamber at the beginning of January last year.

It was the same content that was established already at Tidö Castle in September 2022. What Gunnar Strömmer highlighted was the specific statement that the Tidö parties had written and for which there was no broad majority. It is also that specific statement that has since become a government bill that has been submitted to the Riksdag. We will debate this here in May.

By doing so, one violated the established practice that proposals for constitutional amendments should only be submitted if they have received a broad majority in a parliamentary committee. I truly regret that.

Mr. Speaker! I now turn specifically to the Speaker and regret another matter, which I believe is close to the Speaker's heart. It concerns the work that the Speaker did in his previous role in the Committee on the Constitution, where the presidium consisted of the Speaker and the Social Democrat Björn von Sydow.

The aim was to make the Committee on the Constitution a committee where we would take off our party-political glasses and look at the constitutional practice. It was so that we could present a united KU, which is a strength for democracy given that it is the parliament's oversight power in relation to the government.

We in the Committee on the Constitution have over the years been generous towards one another when it comes to such things as which ministers should be called for hearings. If there are members who have made a report and have substantive reasons for it, it has been a generosity. That generosity lies primarily with the majority that belongs to the same parties as those that the KU scrutinizes, in this case the Tidö parties.

I can only regret what has now happened. In this case, in this review, the majority in the Committee on the Constitution chose to override the opposition, despite the discussion we had. We were, therefore, not in agreement when we then came to the hearings. It is historical, and it is something I truly regret.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Mauricio Rojas (L)

Mr. Speaker! I will devote my contribution to commenting on one of the motions addressed in the report that we are debating today.

It concerns my party colleague Malin Danielsson's motion 2025/26:3143 regarding the establishment of both an independent judicial council, which ultimately frees the judiciary from the power of the government, and a constitutional court, which strengthens the position of the constitution and thereby our constitutionally established civil liberties and rights.

Mr. Speaker! As is well known, the Social Democrats have been the primary brake against this type of liberal reforms. Historically, the party has defended a form of parliamentarism based on an extensive concentration of power, where it has been almost an anathema to both the principle of separation of powers and the institution of judicial review.

The party has pledged a democratic ideal where the principle of popular sovereignty, as expressed in the latest election result, shall prevail unrestrictedly, preferably with a simple majority in the Riksdag. No barriers shall be erected against the will of the people, and the compatibility of the enacted laws with the constitution shall not be reviewed by any independent body.

In this way, Sweden differed for a long time from most other democracies, which, in the spirit of Montesquieu, rested on different power-sharing structures and introduced barriers against the legislators' ability to, through ordinary law adopted by a simple majority, bypass or change the constitution.

Mr. Speaker! The Social Democratic opposition to a liberal democratic constitutional order obviously had to do with the party's long-standing political dominance.

Action and efficiency were the watchwords. Olof Palme was the politician who most clearly and rhetorically forcefully expressed this stance. Political scientist Tommy Möller writes in the book En författning i tiden: regeringsformen under 50 år: For Olof Palme, constitutional limitations intended to curb the majority's ability to make decisions represented a restriction of democracy, almost a tyranny.

Mr. Speaker! In that way, it was for a long time that the Social Democratic Party had a reassuring voter support. That is, as is known, no longer the case. This change has forced Social Democracy to rethink and approach the positions that the Liberals and other bourgeois parties have advocated for a long time. It smells of opportunism, but we nevertheless welcome this liberal sobering up.

Today it is, as we know, another party that speaks warmly of the unconstrained will of the people's excellence and the right to rule as unhindered as possible.

The Social Democratic shift in constitutional issues now opens realistic possibilities to carry out the important reforms proposed in Malin Danielsson's motion within not too distant a future.

Mr. Speaker! In the 2020 Constitutional Committee, the Liberal Party's representative, together with representatives for the Moderates, Christian Democrats, and the Centre Party, submitted a special opinion on the need to strengthen the independence of the courts by establishing an independent court council responsible for the central court administration. In this way, the judiciary would be completely freed from its traditional dependence on the government.

Such a court advice would signify a breakthrough for the principle of separation of powers and a welcome break from a historical tradition where the judges had first been dependent on the monarchy and subsequently on the democratic government.

The Swedish Bar Association argues well in its referral response to the Constitutional Committee's final report for the establishment of such an entity and writes: ”The developments in Poland and Hungary clearly show that courts that are not independent from the executive power in an organizational sense through, for example, administrative measures can lose their independence and their autonomy. Since the courts are the ultimate guarantee that the principle of the rule of law is upheld, the independence of the courts is central to a democracy and a constitutional state (…) In the Bar Association's opinion, it is therefore very important that an independent court council is established.” We in the Liberals fully share this view.

Mr. Speaker! Together with an independent judicial council, the establishment of a strong constitutional court would complete Sweden's development into a full-fledged liberal democracy. There are several European role models, of which the highly esteemed German constitutional court constitutes the most relevant example. It was established as a reaction to the country's tragic history, where one saw how a parliamentary system by parliamentary means could be transformed into a proper dictatorship. We must not forget this. There is also a democratic path to dictatorship, and that path has unfortunately become increasingly common in our time.

Harvard University professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt write in How Democracies Die: Since the end of the Cold War, most democratic collapses have not been driven by military coups but by elected governments. Democratic backsliding today begins at the ballot box.

Mr. Speaker! Since it came into effect in 1951, the German Constitutional Court has overturned hundreds of laws, both federal and state, that have conflicted with the constitution. In Sweden, something similar has never occurred. This is not because our laws are always to be constitutionally untouchable, but because our legal system lacks the possibility of so-called abstract judicial review.

Laws can continue to apply here even if they conflict with the constitution. The only thing that exists in our country is concrete judicial review, meaning that a law is not applied in an individual case. But the law remains. It is not a satisfactory order.

Mr. Speaker! Even this limited judicial review has been historically opposed by the Social Democrats. Here we should remember Gustaf Petrén and his struggle against the Social Democratic Foreign Minister Östen Undén. Later, he was also in conflict with Olof Palme regarding the impact of the European Convention. Petrén went to the European Court of Human Rights repeatedly – and won. This contributed to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms becoming Swedish law in 1995 and to the removal of the hindering manifest requirement in 2011.

Mr. Speaker! Now it is time to take the next step. We need a constitutional court with both abstract and concrete judicial review and an opportunity for individual citizens to complain when their constitutional rights are violated.

In Germany, just such complaints constitute the overwhelming majority of the 250,000 cases that the court has handled. It is a right that Swedish citizens should also have.

Furthermore, we should consider strengthening the role of the Council on Legislation (Lagrådet). The Government should be obliged to consult the Council on Legislation in all legislative matters, and the Council on Legislation should be given stronger opportunities to stop legislation that is contrary to the constitution. As it states in a committee motion from the Center Party from the 1980s: "One way to reduce the risk of parliamentary decisions that can be questioned from a constitutional point of view would be to give the Council on Legislation a veto in matters of this kind ... so that a legislative proposal that has been rejected by a unanimous Council on Legislation may not be adopted by the Parliament."

This constitutional control ex ante, that is, before a law enters into force, exists in many countries. The French Constitutional Council, established in 1958, is an excellent example of this. The same applies to the Finnish Parliament's Constitutional Law Committee, which we had the opportunity to visit in November last year, which de facto has similar powers. In this respect, as in so many respects, Finland is unique because it concerns a politically appointed but still highly respected parliamentary body, whose positions, despite formally lacking binding effect, in practice determine what is considered to be in accordance with the constitution.

Mr. Speaker! This is the Liberals' constitutional choice, and we are convinced that more parties will sooner or later reach the same conclusions, not least in a time when the threats to the rule of law and our fundamental freedoms and rights are greater than they have been in a long time.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Jan Riise (MP)

Mr. Speaker! Thanks to the previous speakers! One is tempted to think of John Cleese, who sometimes began with "And now something completely different!"

This report covers, as several have pointed out, a rather long series of different important issues, from the form of government to inquiries into power, public service, and constitutional courts. It has also been conveyed by the committee's other members. Therefore, I intended to stick to two matters of quite different types, namely public service and trans people's need for clarifications in discrimination and constitutional texts. I will begin with public service.

Ensuring and maintaining the population's will to defend is the core of psychological defense, and an important part of this is to safeguard and uphold freedom of opinion and free media.

The Defence Preparation Board published the 2023 document Kraftsamling, in which it points out that public service holds a special position through its broad mandate, its stable funding, its high requirements for accessibility, and the high level of trust the public holds for the companies' operations. An important part of the psychological defense is thus to safeguard public service's funding and long-term governance, as well as the companies' ability to be where people are.

But our high confidence in public service – at least among many of us – is nothing that can be taken for granted, especially when the funding is insufficient. Miljöpartiet would have wanted to see that greater consideration had been taken of public service's special status within the preparedness when the proposed frameworks for the funding for the upcoming license period were set by the Public service committee.

We in Miljöpartiet also believe that public service needs targeted funds for preparedness and a strengthened digital infrastructure in accordance with the request that Försvarsberedningen has submitted.

In times of crisis, public service is central for quickly reaching out with information and news to the entire population. At the same time, we know that there are groups that are not reached by public service. The ambition to reach these groups in order to strengthen preparedness should be made even more visible in public service's mandate.

Miljöpartiet therefore also wants to further strengthen public services' independence through a constitutional protection. Even though today's public service companies are given a strong independence in current legislation, laws can be changed with a stroke of a pen in the Riksdag. A protection for public services' independence should therefore be introduced in the constitution so that its independence requires a two-thirds majority to be changed.

Mr. Speaker! Just over a year ago, the investigation *Några frågor om grundläggande fri- och rättigheter* was presented. According to the directive, the investigation was to examine some questions regarding the protection of fundamental freedoms and rights as it applies according to the Instrument of Government. The committee was to consider whether this protection should be changed in some parts and whether entirely new fundamental freedoms and rights should be introduced. Member Malin Björk has spoken quite a bit about the result of this.

In a motion that Miljöpartiet submitted last year, we proposed that the then-working inquiry could be given an additional directive regarding the question of including gender identity and gender expression in the Instrument of Government. We also said that if such an additional directive could not be given, a new inquiry should be considered. This is, therefore, in the motion where the committee proposes rejection. Here, we advocate that a new inquiry be appointed but with a slightly broadened mandate compared to previous proposals.

The ground of discrimination for gender expression and identity is the most recently added ground of discrimination, and it is also the only one that can explicitly be said to be missing from the enumeration of grounds of discrimination made in Chapter 1, Section 2 of the Instrument of Government, where it states that "the public shall counteract discrimination of people on the basis of gender, skin color, national or ethnic origin, linguistic or religious affiliation, disability, sexual orientation, age or other circumstances concerning the individual as a person."

Even though the enumeration does not exactly correspond with the other grounds for discrimination, all can be said to be covered by the wording of the Instrument of Government, while the last added ground for discrimination, which aims to protect trans people, is not covered. We believe this discrepancy in the legislation should be corrected through an addition to the Instrument of Government.

In Chapter 2, Section 12, there is not as extensive an enumeration, but even here we believe that an addition should be made to clarify that laws and regulations must not disadvantage trans people.

These additions are important, not least because the rights of trans people in particular are increasingly questioned in the public debate. The struggle for rights is not over because one battle is won and a law is passed. The developments in Sweden and the examples from Europe show that we cannot simply look forward and work for the next reform without the rights that already exist needing to be protected.

Strengthening the protection for a vulnerable minority in Sweden is an urgent task for politics. Since we submitted the motion last year, the public debate has unfortunately hardened further, and within the LGBTQI group, it is particularly the rights and existence of trans people that are being attacked.

Miljöpartiet argues that changes to the constitution should be made with restraint. Not all rights should be protected in exactly that place. Last year, we therefore only advocated for the above addition so that already existing grounds for discrimination would also be included in the Instrument of Government. In this year's motion, after another year of a debate where particularly trans people's rights are attacked, we now advocate that the investigation that is appointed regarding changes be given a somewhat broader mandate.

We want the investigation to be tasked with, in a similar manner as the right to terminate one's pregnancy is now proposed to be included, also to include the right to change legal gender, a possibility that has actually existed in Sweden since 1972 but which has never been as questioned as it is today, as well as the right to enter into marriage and the right to be joint guardians regardless of legal gender.

Mr. Speaker! I naturally stand behind our reservations but move for approval only of reservation 18 under point 30.

The deliberation was hereby concluded.

(Decisions were made under § 17.)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)