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Constitutional Rights and Finnish Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Raimo Lahti
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Extract

The constitutional aspects of criminal law and criminal procedure only began to receive serious attention in Finland in the 1990s. The remarkable change in legal thinking and practice in this respect was connected to two major legislative reforms: firstly, Finland ratified the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) in 1990 and, secondly, new provisions on fundamental (basic) rights were incorporated in the Finnish Constitution in 1995. A fully revised new Constitution of Finland was enacted in 1999 (to be entered into force on 1 March 2000), but the substance of fundamental rights and freedoms was confirmed already in the constitutional reform of 1995.

Those aspects had not, however, been completely overlooked before. Most of the relevant human rights treaties were eventually ratified in Finland (e.g., the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, CCPR) and, when ratified, they were incorporated into the domestic legal order. Nevertheless, courts or administrative authorities very seldom referred to human rights treaties or constitutional rights before the late 1980s; a tradition of invoking constitutional rights in the courts was lacking. Instead, human rights treaties and constitutional rights were primarily regarded as binding the legislator.

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Articles
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , Summer 1999 , pp. 592 - 606
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1999

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References

1 See Dworkin, Ronald, Taking Rights Seriously (Duckworth, 1977/1987)Google Scholar and Alexy, Robert, Theorie der Grundrechte (Baden-Baden, 1985)Google Scholar.

2 See especially Scheinin, Martin, Human Rights in Finnish Law, summary of a doctoral dissertation (Jyväskylä, 1991)Google Scholar.

3 See, e.g., Jyränki, Antero, “Taking Democracy Seriously. The Problem of the Control of the Constitutionality of Legislation”, in Sakslin, M., ed., The Finnish Constitution in Transition (Helsinki, 1991) 6–30Google Scholar.

4 See, e.g., Blomstedt, Yrjö, “A Historical Background of the Finnish Legal System”, in Uotila, J., ed., The Finnish Legal System (Helsinki, 1966) 7–23, at 19Google Scholar. Finland was annexed by the Russian Empire during the Napoleonic wars, but the Russian Emperor promised to uphold Norway's own Constitution and laws (inherited from Sweden, to which Finland belonged as an integral part until 1809).

5 See Pellonp, Matti, “The Implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights in Finland”, in Rosas, A., ed., International Human Rights Norms in Domestic Law (Helsinki, 1990) 44–67Google Scholar.

6 See in more detail Scheinin, Martin, “Incorporation and Implementation of Human Rights in Finland”, in Scheinin, M., ed., International Human Rights Norms in the Nordic and Baltic Countries (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague, 1996) 257–294Google Scholar.

7 See Hannikainen, Lauri, “How to Interpret, and What to Do to, the Treaty on Aircraft Seizures with the Soviet Union”, in Finnish Yearbook of International Law (vol. II, 1991) 538–558Google Scholar.

8 As for a compilation of the provisions on the basic rights, Constitutional Laws of Finland, The Parliament of Finland, et al. (Helsinki 1996)Google Scholar.

9 So Scheinin, in International Human Rights Norms in the Nordic and Baltic Countries, supra n. 6, at 276.

10 See, e.g., Jyränki, in The Finnish Constitution in Transition, supra n. 3, at 14.

11 See especially Olsson, Curt, “Om lagprövning” [Judicial review], vol. 130 (1994) Tidsskrift utgiven af Juridiska Föreningen i Finland 443–503Google Scholar.

12 See generally Lahti, Raimo, “Recodifying the Finnish Criminal Code of 1889: Towards a More Efficient, Just and Humane Criminal Law”, (1993) 27 Is. L.R. 101–117Google Scholar. See also Lahti, Raimo and Nuotio, Kimmo, eds., Criminal Law Theory in Transition - Strafrechtstheorie im Umbruch (Finnish Lawyers' Publishing Company, Helsinki, 1992)Google Scholar passim

13 Regarding this discussion in general, see Lahti, Raimo, “The Rule of Law and Finnish Criminal Law Reform”, (1995–1996) 37 Acta Juridica Hungarica 251–258, at 255Google Scholar.

14 See also Lahti, Raimo, “Article 11”, in Alfredsson, A. and Eide, A., eds., The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Kluwer Law International, 1999) 239–249, at 245Google Scholar.

15 See FCC 21:13: “A person who intentionally or through gross negligence places another in serious danger of losing his/her life or health, shall be sentenced, unless the same or a more severe penalty for the act is provided elsewhere in the law, for imperilment to a fine or to imprisonment for at most two years”.

16 See Colvin, E., “Criminal Law and The Rule of Law”, in Fitzgerald, P., ed., Crime, Justice and Codification (Carswell, Toronto, 1986) 125–152, at 135Google Scholar.

17 See especially Delmas-Marty, Mireille, “The European Union and Penal Law”, (1998) 4 Eur. L.J. 87–115, at 100CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Compare Decision 53/1993 (X.13) of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, where individual responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity was established irrespective of their punishability under domestic law, but was based on the general cogency of the relevant international law.

19 See especially Nuutila, Ari-Matti, “The Reform of Fundamental Rights and the Criminal Justice System in Finland”, (1995–1996) 37 Acta Juridica Hungarica 303–314Google Scholar, and Nuotio, Kimmo, “The Difficult Task of Drafting Law on Principles”, 287–301Google Scholar.

20 See, e.g., Statement No. 23 of the Parliamentary Select Committee, 1997 Parliament Session, when dealing with the Government Bill (No. 6/1997) on the offences against the judiciary, public authority and public order as well as on sexual offences.

21 See especially the doctoral theses of Nuutila, Ari-Matti, Rikosoikeudellinen huolimattomuus, (Helsinki, 1996)Google Scholar (German Summary: Fahrl'ssigkeit als Verhaltensform und als Schuldform), and Nuotio, Kimmo, Teko, vaara, seuraus (Helsinki, 1998) (German Summary: Handlung, Gefahr, Erfolg)Google Scholar.

22 See, e.g., Eskeland, Stäle, “Criminal Law and the International Human Rights”, in Snare, A., ed., Beware of Punishment, Scandinavian Studies in Criminology (vol. 14, 1995) 204–221Google Scholar. According to Eskeland (at 220), international human rights permit an offensive and not only a defensive criminal policy.

23 See, e.g., Backman, Eero, “Rechtsstaat und Strafrecht”, in Lahti, R. and Nuotio, K., eds., Towards a Total Reform of Finnish Criminal Law (Helsinki, 1990) 7–20Google Scholar.

24 See especially Träskman, P.O., “Reform Movements in Criminal Procedure and the Protection of Human Rights in Finland”, (1993) 64 Internationale de Droit Pénal (RIDP) 1063–1087Google Scholar, and Niemi-Kiesiläinen, Johanna, “Perusoikeudet rikosprosessissa” [Basic rights in criminal procedure] in Nieminen, L., ed., Perusoikeudet Suomessa [Basic rights in Finland] (Helsinki, 1999) 149–175Google Scholar.

25 See also Träskman, supra n. 24, at 1080-1083.

26 See, e.g., Nuotio, Acta Juridica Hungarica (1995-1996), supra n. 19, at 291 and 301, and, from the point of view of legal philosophy, Aarnio, Aulis, The Rational as Reasonable (D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, 1987) passimGoogle Scholar. See also Hirvonen, Ari, “The Rule of Justice and the Ethical Limits of Criminal Law”, Acta Juridica Hungarica (1995–1996) 221–229Google Scholar, who prefers to speak about the rule of justice (instead of ‘rule of law’).

27 See Tuori, Kaarlo, “Oikeustiede 2000” (Summary: Legal Science in the Year 2000), (1998) 96 Lakimies [Journal of Finnish Lawyers' Association] 1002–1013, 1213Google Scholar.

28 See Delmas-Marty, (1998) European L.J. supra n. 17, at 96-97.

29 See more e.g., Lahti, Raimo, “Towards an International and European Criminal Policy?”, in Tupamäki, M., ed., Liber Amicorum Bengt Broms (Helsinki, 1999) 222–240, at 235–239Google Scholar, and Albrecht, Peter-Alexis and Braum, Stefan, “Deficiencies in the Development of European Criminal Law”, (1999) 5 Eur. L.J. 293–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 See in more detail, Neuwahl, N. and Rosas, A., eds., The European Union and Human Rights (Dordrecht, Martinus Nijhoff, 1995) passimGoogle Scholar.

31 See generally Van den Wyngaert, Christine, “The Transformations of International Criminal Law in Response to the Challenge of Organized Crime, General Report”, (1999) 70 133–221Google Scholar. See also the corresponding Resolution IV of the XVIth International Congress on Penal Law, adopted on 11 September 1999 in Budapest; RIDP, vol. 70, 1999, pp. 907-913.

32 See, e.g., Dugard, John and Van den Wyngaert, Christine, “Reconciling Extradition with Human Rights”, (1998) 92 Am. J. Int'l L. 187–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 See Van den Wyngaert, supra n. 31, at 149.