Henrik Wenander

Under various forms of international cooperation, especially EU law, Swedish authorities are obliged to recognize foreign administrative decisions. The point of departure under Swedish law is that foreign administrative decisions have no legal status as such, but need to be recognized in Swedish law. In Swedish legal discourse, it is clear that foreign decisions are regarded as matters of ‘law’ and not only ‘facts’. There is some scope for Swedish authorities to review the foreign decision in relation to public international law, EU law, or Swedish constitutional law. However, this kind of review is seemingly unusual, as there are no clear examples in the case law of the Swedish courts of precedent. The overall picture is that Swedish law has accepted the recognition regimes without controversies. This may be explained by the Swedish legal culture, with its focus on written law, adopted by the democratically legitimate legislator.