Polisiär våldsanvändning : En straff- och offentligrättslig undersökning

Sammanfattning: Johan Boucht. Polisiär våldsanvändning. En straff- och offentligrättslig undersökning. Use of Force by the Police. A Public Law and Criminal Law Study.This doctoral thesis is a criminal law and public law study, which comprises a dogmatic and normative analysis of the legal norms that give powers to the police to use of force against individuals and property. The legal foundation for the use of force is constituted by legal norms that partly belong to the area of Public Law (10 § Police Act etc.), partly by norms of a Criminal Law character (24:1, 24:4 Criminal Law Act) and is therefore dualistic. Whilst the former establish an administrative authority for the police to use force, the latter are general justificatory grounds of Criminal Law that are applicable to police officers when performing their authorised tasks.The research is divided into three parts. The first part contains a dogmatic analysis (and reconstruction) of the applicable Swedish law de lege lata. The analysis points, inter alia, at certain dogmatic inconsistencies and overlaps between the norms of criminal law and administrative law. Secondly, the ambition isto analyse the relationship between the two groups of legal norm, particularly with regard to legal liability. This relationship is characterised by a formal and a material dimension. The conclusion in this section is that the norms need to be looked upon as separate orders of legal norms and, thus, that legal liability must be differentiated between disciplinary sanctions and criminal law sanctions. The third part is a normative analysis de lege ferenda of four subject-matters that have been identified in the former parts as somewhat problematic. These include: 1) the so-called subsidiarity of criminal law responsibility for misconduct of office in certain situations; 2) the dogmatic construction of putative defences regarding imagined situations where justificatory norms are applicable; 3) the right for police officers to plead self-defence; and 4) the dogmatic construction of the rules that form authority for police officers to use fire-arms.