Häktning bakom stängda dörrar: en rättssociologisk studie om dramaturgi och rättssäkerhet vid häktningsförhandlingar

In this bachelor thesis we highlight problems within the jurisdiction of remand hearings in Swedish district courts. We discuss if there might be a risk that remand hearings befall arbitrary in the matter of how they occur routinely for judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys. The purpose of the study is to, from a perspective of legal security, attend the balance between the demands of transparency in rule of law and secure preliminary investigation. The focus is on how the court of law, prosecutors and defense attorney act in the court room and how they apply and approach in camera. This is done through qualitative observations at remand hearings at Malmö district court and interviews with one judge and two prosecutors. Through Erving Goffmans theory of dramaturgic perspective we discuss how the actions of litigants in the court room can be resembled as foreseen roles where every individual relate to their dramaturgic part which may induce them to act in certain ways. Through Aleksander Peczeniks theory of formal and material legal security we discuss how reflection from the parties are crucial to ensure a secure administration of justice from the state, towards the individual. We have come to the conclusion that it is important for the court and parties to maintain a certain formality and profession to ensure an objective adjudication of a suspect’s innocence or guilt. The legal security menaces when the court and parties no longer seem to reflect on how they act and get bound to their dramaturgical role, since it can result in a deflect in how they reflect on their actions, they can become less critical and this can lead to a default of predictability in the reading of law. The observations and interviews have shown a routine-like way to relate to the appliance of in camera. This risks a compromise of both the formal and material legal security, when judges and prosecutors don’t seem to reflect on the importance of transparency in rule of law in a state of the legal process that is crucial for the suspect, since he or she still don’t have a prosecution brought against himself or herself. We opine that a safe preliminary investigation can’t be at the expense of a secure legal protection