Nazister och demonstrationsfriheten : Är organisationsförbud lösningen?

• Main Author: Wiklander, Ludvig
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Stockholms universitet, Juridiska institutionen 2019
• Subjects: Nazism; demonstrationsrätt; föreningsfrihet; organisationsförbud; Law and Society; Juridik och samhälle
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-169501

Nazi demonstrations have in recent years become a recurring theme in Swedish media. In the summer of 2018 public opinion against the Nazi demonstrations became so strong that the governing party proclaimed that the Swedish Nazi party should be banned. A majority of the other parties agreed. What effect a party ban would have on the freedom of demonstration is however unclear and the purpose of this paper is therefore to examine that subject. To achieve that purpose the paper examines the extent of the freedom of demon- stration in the Swedish constitution and its subsequent laws. In this section, the paper highlights that a demonstration where the organizer hasn’t applied for a demonstration permit still has the same rights as a demonstration where the or- ganizer has a permit. The findings in the paper also shows that current case law advocates that if a crime is being committed during a demonstration the police should wait with arresting suspects, provided the arrests would in effect dissolve the demonstration and as long as the crime is not obvious. The paper moreover examines the exemption in the Swedish constitution that supposedly allows for the banning of Nazi organizations. The conclusion is that the exemption must be characterized as a relatively narrow one. The exemption allows for only the banning of such racist groups that persecute a distinct ethnic or racial group – in contrast with for instance the persecution of refugees in gen- eral. The paper furthermore argues that the word persecution should be inter- preted as meaning repeated acts of violence or threats, although merely hate speech might arguably be sufficient as well. Altogether, this strong protection for the freedom of demonstration, in combi- nation with the narrow exemption for banning racist parties, makes it appear as uncertain how effective a party ban would be in suppressing Nazi demonstra-tions. The paper’s final section thus discusses whether other measures should be considered. In this discussion the argument is made that a constitutional change that would limit the right of demonstration solely for Nazi or similar groups would probably be the most proportional and effective way of stopping Nazi demonstrations.