SWEDEN Law and Practice Contributed by: Simon Arvmyren, Christopher Stridh and Mikaela Tysk, Delphi
ments if the court makes the decision that it would ease the understanding of the opening statement or assist the proceedings in another way. The plaintiff begins by stating its request for relief, whereby the respondent presents its reply and possible request for relief regarding coun- terclaims. During the opening statements, the parties, each in turn, present the factual basis for their respective claims or position together with a presentation of written evidence. In com- parison, opening statements take more time in a main hearing under Swedish procedure than in many other jurisdictions, since written evidence will not be presented during the witness testimo- nies unless it is necessary to refer the witness to a document in order to put a question to them. Presentation software is commonly used by par- ties in more complex cases. After opening statements, oral witness examina- tions will take place, starting with any party rep- resentatives followed by the plaintiff’s witness and experts and thereafter the respondent’s wit- nesses and experts. Closing Arguments and Deciding the Case The main hearing will be finalised with closing arguments from each side. Post-hearing briefs are not allowed, and if there is any reason to continue the trial, such as new and unknown evidence surfacing after the main hearing, the hearing will instead be re-opened. As a final note, the court may only decide the case on the factual allegations and evidence that has been presented during the main hearing, which follows from the principle of immediate- ness. This means that the court may not take into consideration facts or allegations that have not been raised or referred to during the main
hearing and have only been included in written submissions or otherwise during the preparatory phase of the trial or after the main hearing (see Chapter 17, Section 2 of the Procedural Code). 7.2 Case Management Hearings Case management during the preparatory phase has been briefly described in 7.1 Trial Proceed- ings . 7.3 Jury Trials in Civil Cases Except for cases concerning freedom of the press, jury trials are not available in civil cases (see Chapter 1, Section 3a of the Procedural Code). 7.4 Rules That Govern Admission of Evidence Rules regarding admission of evidence can be found in Chapter 35 of the Procedural Code. As a rule, all forms of evidence are admissible. However, evidence can be declared inadmissible if it is not important to the case or if the evidence can be presented in another way which would entail less effort, trouble or cost; or if the taking of evidence would delay the case in an unnec- essary way. As an important exception to the above, written witness statements or affidavits are inadmissible unless the parties agree that they should be allowed. In relation to evidence that is admissible, the court has freedom to evaluate all evidence pre- sented as it seems fit. There are no formal rules that certain evidence as such would have a high- er probative value than other forms of evidence. In relation to circumstances that are undisputed or considered notorious, no evidence is required. Similarly, evidence is not required to prove legal rules and instructions. Since evidential hearings
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