The Relation between the Public Prosecutor and the Police
Chapter I
The Relation between the Public Prosecutor and the Police
Possible measures before the preliminary investigation has been instituted
Both police and prosecution service are bound by the principle of legality. That is, both authorities are obliged to prosecute every offence brought to their notice. However, there are a number of rules in Swedish law concerning decisions not to prosecute in individual cases. These exceptions leave considerable room for exercising discretionary powers.
Generally, the room for discretion is much more extensive for the prosecution service, in comparison to the discretionary powers of the police. The possibilities for the prosecution service to decide whether to prosecute or not (even if a crime has been reported to the prosecution service) are described below. Here, attention is paid to possibilities of the police to decide whether to prosecute or not.
The only legal provision concerning this issue in Swedish law is to be found in Sect. 9 of the Police Act (Polislagen, 1984:387). Pursuant to this provision, when a police officer learns of an offence liable to public prosecution, he shall report the offence as soon as practicable. That is, he is obliged to inform a senior officer or to enter the crime in the daily report.
The discretionary power of the police is formulated as an exception to this strict obligation. According to Sect. 9, subs. 2 Police Act, a police officer may refrain from reporting an offence if, in view of the circumstances in the specific case, the offence is of a trivial nature and it is obvious that no other sanction than a fine would be imposed on the offender.
The National Police Board has issued guidelines concerning the exercise of these discretionary powers by the police (Rikspolisens föreskrifter och allmänna råd om rapporeftergift, RPSFS 2000:36). The guidelines contain more detailed rules regarding three different questions. Firstly, it is provided, that the police shall not refrain from reporting offences committed by a policeman or some other categories of servicemen exercising public powers, such as patrolmen, and so forth. Secondly, how the decision on refraining from reporting an offence shall be documented is prescribed. Thirdly, criteria for what shall be considered a trivial offence are laid down. The offence shall be of negligible seriousness, not amount to an evident danger for the health of the persons involved, and should not attract public interest when not prosecuted. The guidelines do not detail any specific type of offences that would be especially suited for decisions not to report. The police officer making a decision should also consider how many resources an investigation into the offence in question would require. Furthermore, according to the guidelines, the room left to a police officer in deciding to refrain from reporting an offence is much smaller than the room for waiving prosecution given to the prosecutor.
If a preliminary investigation has already been instituted, it is not possible to refrain from reporting the crime.
Speaking about discretionary powers of the police, the question may arise whether it is possible to observe a certain policy in the application of these powers, and if this is case, by whom this policy is determined. It is not easy to answer this question. The Government formulates the main aims of the policy, of course. The National Police Board, as a central authority, implements governmental policy through more concrete decisions and guidelines. If, for instance, the Government declares the abuse of narcotic drugs the most serious social problem in Sweden, and the main aim of the policy in this area must be ‘the society free from narcotic drugs’, it is obvious that the room for refraining from reporting narcotic drugs offences is very limited. Also, the prosecution service plays a very important role as the prosecution service can control the activity of the police through procedural decisions.
The second possibility for the police to stop proceedings regarding an offence before a preliminary investigation has been instituted, consists in imposing summary fines (ordningsbotföreläggande). The proceedings involved are regulated in ch. 48 sect. 13 - 20 Code of Judicial Procedure (CJP) and by the Regulation concerning summary fines (Ordningsbotskungörelse, 1968:199).
According to ch. 48 sect. 13 CJP, the summary fines may be imposed as a penalty only for those offences that could be sentenced by fines that is by imposing a certain sum of money, but not day-fines.
In consultation with the National Police Board, the Prosecutor-General has issued a regulation determining offences, which may be punished by police by means of summary fines (Riksåklagarens föreskrifter om ordningsbot för vissa brott, 1999:178). This Regulation contains a list of such offences, as well as the sums that shall be imposed for each one of the offences on the list. Above, all the list of offences includes offences in road traffic (about ninety percent) but also offences in connection with border crossings (Penalties for Smuggling Act). The National Police Board has published more detailed instructions concerning proceedings when imposing summary fines (Rikspolisstyrelsens föreskrifter och allmänna råd om tillämpningen av ordningsbot inom Polisen, RPSFS 2000:10).
The proceedings can be summarised as follows. If an offence, which is on the list issued by the Prosecutor-General, has been committed, the police officer is entitled to impose a penalty for the offence on the spot. However, this is possible if the offender has confessed to the offence and accepted the summary fine only. The consent may be given immediately, or – according to the guidelines – within eight days. If the offender has consented to the summary fine, the decision of the police officer has the same consequences as the judgment of the court (ch. 48 sect. 3 CJP). If not, the regular criminal procedure is followed.
In ch. 48 sect. 20 CJP, it is provided that the Government may also give prosecutors and custom officers the power to impose summary fines. As regards the custom officers, such the rules have been laid down in the Smuggling Act. For prosecutors this power takes the form of a summary penalty order, which will be discussed below.
Both the law (CJP) and the guidelines enumerate a number of specific situations when the provisions about summary fine are inapplicable. This is, for example, the case if the offender has committed another offence also, and it is not possible to impose penalty for both of them or if an action of the injured party might be expected and so forth.
After the criminal investigation has been instituted
If none of the measures mentioned above has been taken, and other exceptions mentioned below are not applicable, either the police or the public prosecutor shall institute the preliminary investigation. Pursuant to ch. 23 sect. 22 CJP, it is not necessary to carry out a preliminary investigation, when an offence does not deserve any other sanction than a fine, the case is very simple and the offence has been fully cleared-up. Actually, the only practical difference between this kind of simplified proceeding and the ‘normal’ investigation is the way of documentation of the proceedings. The National Police Board has issued guidelines concerning these proceedings (Rikspolisstyrelsens allmänna råd om handläggning av brottmål utan förundersökning, RPSFS 2000:73).
The division of competence between the prosecution service and the police during criminal investigation in Swedish law is not so easy to summarise. A basic, and very fragmentary, regulation is to be found in the Code of Judicial Procedure (CJP) and in the Regulation on the preliminary criminal investigation (Förundersökningskungörelse, 1947:948). According to ch. 23 sect. 3 CJP, either the police or the prosecutor can institute a criminal investigation. It is not mentioned specifically in the provision, by whom under which circumstances the investigation should be instituted in a particular case. However, according to this provision, when the investigation has been instituted by the police and the case is not of a simple nature, then – as soon as a certain person for good reason has become the suspect of committing the crime – responsibility for the investigation shall be taken over by the prosecutor. If there are special reasons to do so, the prosecutor can take over the leadership of investigation even before someone has become a suspect.
Obviously, this way of dividing the competence between police and prosecutor is extremely vague. Besides, the question of responsibility for the criminal investigation contains a number of other important issues that should be answered by law, but have been left open by the Swedish legislator.
The answers to those questions are to be found in the guidelines of the Prosecutor-General (Riksåklagare) concerning the leadership of the preliminary investigation (Riksåklagarens allmänna råd om ledningen av förundersökning i brottmål, RÅFS 1997:12). The guidelines have been made up in consultation with the National Police Board (Rikspolisstyrelse), which issued identical instructions in 1998. They contain a more detailed division of competences between the police and prosecutor as far as the leadership of preliminary investigation is concerned, as well as regulation of some other issues in connection to this. Roughly, the following can be pointed out to characterise the main principles of the division of competence. The police handle the offences of an everyday nature, whereas the public prosecutor should lead the investigation in more complicated cases, as well as in cases in which the expected sentence is higher than two years imprisonment. Besides, there are a number of different circumstances enumerated in the guidelines, which require the leadership of the public prosecutor (e.g. the suspected is under 18 years of age, the suspected suffers of a mental illness, and so forth).
It should be mentioned, that the guidelines are not compulsory. Even cases that are, typically, more complicated, may be investigated by the police, if the particular case is of a simple nature. A detailed agreement concerning division of competence between the police and the public prosecution office is supposed to be reached on a local level, that is, between local units of the prosecutor office and police authorities, depending, for example, on qualifications of the staff in a given locality and other circumstances.
In the light of the CJP provisions, together with the rules laid down in the guidelines mentioned above, the following conclusions concerning the responsibility for the criminal investigation in an individual case can be drawn.
Ultimate responsibility for the proper criminal investigation – as far as both its factual and legal aspects are concerned – has the leader of investigation. The leader of the investigation is either a police officer, or a public prosecutor (ch. 23 sect. 3 CJP). This means that, if a police officer is the leader of the investigation, he acts independently and the responsibility for ensuring all statutory rules and guaranties rests on him or her. The same is true, of course, if the leader of investigation is a prosecutor.
In principle, the police lead investigations in cases of a simple nature, whereas prosecutors lead investigations in more complicated cases. Some circumstances may cause the investigation to be led by the prosecutor, even if the case itself is of a simple nature.
The basic rules concerning division of competences might give the impression that in those cases, where the police are leader of the investigation, the role of the police is comparable to the position of the public prosecutor. However, in reality, the public prosecutor dominates criminal investigation as a whole.
Firstly, only public prosecutors are empowered to bring a case to court and are, consequently, fully responsible for the case. It means, even if the police work independently as a leader of investigation and have own responsibility for the investigation, the public prosecutor has to have the possibility to control the activity of the police. At some point the prosecutor takes over from the police in bringing the case to court and fulfilling all necessary requirements.
Both according to the Guidelines and sect. 2. of the Regulation (Förundersökningkungörelse, 1947:948), the leader of investigation, if he is a police officer, is obliged to inform the public prosecutor about the ongoing investigation even if no particular person is suspected of the crime in those instances where the investigation concerns a serious crime, the case contains complicated legal aspects, as well as in other situations, depending on the circumstances and the nature of the crime.
Further, if a disagreement between the public prosecutor and police occurs as regards the question who is in charge of the criminal investigation in a particular case, it is the prosecutor who decides the matter. The public prosecutor can also take over the leadership of an investigation whenever he considers it appropriate.
If the leader of criminal investigation is a public prosecutor, he is entitled, according to ch. 23 sect. 3 CJP, to ask for assistance from the police and to give police officers instructions to perform some specific investigative measures. The law does not specify the kind of investigative measures, except that the instructions should be appropriate with respect to the nature of the measure required. Obviously, these requests concern, for instance, measures that require technical equipment, which normally is not at the disposal of the prosecutor office.
Decision-making during the criminal investigation is divided between police authorities and public prosecutors in the following way.
As a leader of the investigation, a police officer may discontinue the investigation (or refrain from instituting it) independently of the prosecutor, if it is obvious that the act is not a crime, or the crime cannot be proved (ch. 23 sect. 4 CJP).
If the police authority has decided not to institute a criminal investigation or to discontinue an investigation which is going on, and the decision is appealed by the injured party or other persons entitled, it shall be re-examined by the public prosecutor.
The criminal investigation can be discontinued due to the reasons enumerated in the ch. 23 sect. 4a CJP also, that is, because of economical reasons (the investigation is too expensive with respect to the nature of the crime), or a decision on diversion according to ch. 20 sect. 7 (waiving of prosecution) can be expected. The decision to stop the investigation in these situations may be made by the public prosecutor only.
Section 4a was added in 1982, as part of a reform of the preliminary investigation, with the purpose of establishing justified economic efficiency. In the government bill concerning this amendment, the Minister of Justice motivated the proposal by pointing out the necessity to find a solution to situations, where a very costly investigation has to be carried out in order to prosecute a negligible offence. For instance, if prosecution of an illegal trespass on the property of another landowner requires complicated surveying, at the same time, as the offence itself is relatively negligible, the prosecutor should have the possibility to discontinue the prosecution. A similar situation may arise by prosecution of illegal fishing or hunting, etc. Thus, generally, the possibility of discontinuation (or not instituting) an investigation for the reasons mentioned in this provision presupposes a considerable disproportionality between the costs of the investigation and the importance of the public interest affected.
As regards discontinuation of an investigation or the decision to refrain from instituting an investigation, where waiving of prosecution can be expected, one could ask, why not to waive a prosecution directly, instead of discontinuing it according to sect. 4a. The reason is, that the waiving of prosecution pursuant to the ch. 20 sect. 7 CJP is allowed if the offence has been fully cleared-up only. The provision sect. 4a makes it possible to discontinue the prosecution for the same reason, but without the necessity of clearing-up the offence. Section 4a was supposed to be applied restrictively and indeed the number of cases where the provision has been applied has been very low (2000: 29 cases; 2001: 52 and 2002: 91).
The public prosecutor shall take over the leadership of a criminal investigation if a necessity to use some means of coercion arises. However, the police as a leader of investigation may carry out a minor house search, a personal search, seizure and some other similar, less encroaching coercive measures.
The conclusion here is that, even if the Swedish police have a relatively wide competence to act independently during criminal investigation, the public prosecutor service has main responsibility for criminal investigation and, consequently, a dominating position during it. Legal regulation is not always precise enough in this respect, in the sense of a clear determination of obligations of the two authorities between themselves. It seems that the Swedish legislator has emphasized co-operation and agreement between the police and prosecution service more than a clear and strict division of powers.
The Relation between the Public Prosecutor and the Police
Possible measures before the preliminary investigation has been instituted
Both police and prosecution service are bound by the principle of legality. That is, both authorities are obliged to prosecute every offence brought to their notice. However, there are a number of rules in Swedish law concerning decisions not to prosecute in individual cases. These exceptions leave considerable room for exercising discretionary powers.
Generally, the room for discretion is much more extensive for the prosecution service, in comparison to the discretionary powers of the police. The possibilities for the prosecution service to decide whether to prosecute or not (even if a crime has been reported to the prosecution service) are described below. Here, attention is paid to possibilities of the police to decide whether to prosecute or not.
The only legal provision concerning this issue in Swedish law is to be found in Sect. 9 of the Police Act (Polislagen, 1984:387). Pursuant to this provision, when a police officer learns of an offence liable to public prosecution, he shall report the offence as soon as practicable. That is, he is obliged to inform a senior officer or to enter the crime in the daily report.
The discretionary power of the police is formulated as an exception to this strict obligation. According to Sect. 9, subs. 2 Police Act, a police officer may refrain from reporting an offence if, in view of the circumstances in the specific case, the offence is of a trivial nature and it is obvious that no other sanction than a fine would be imposed on the offender.
The National Police Board has issued guidelines concerning the exercise of these discretionary powers by the police (Rikspolisens föreskrifter och allmänna råd om rapporeftergift, RPSFS 2000:36). The guidelines contain more detailed rules regarding three different questions. Firstly, it is provided, that the police shall not refrain from reporting offences committed by a policeman or some other categories of servicemen exercising public powers, such as patrolmen, and so forth. Secondly, how the decision on refraining from reporting an offence shall be documented is prescribed. Thirdly, criteria for what shall be considered a trivial offence are laid down. The offence shall be of negligible seriousness, not amount to an evident danger for the health of the persons involved, and should not attract public interest when not prosecuted. The guidelines do not detail any specific type of offences that would be especially suited for decisions not to report. The police officer making a decision should also consider how many resources an investigation into the offence in question would require. Furthermore, according to the guidelines, the room left to a police officer in deciding to refrain from reporting an offence is much smaller than the room for waiving prosecution given to the prosecutor.
If a preliminary investigation has already been instituted, it is not possible to refrain from reporting the crime.
Speaking about discretionary powers of the police, the question may arise whether it is possible to observe a certain policy in the application of these powers, and if this is case, by whom this policy is determined. It is not easy to answer this question. The Government formulates the main aims of the policy, of course. The National Police Board, as a central authority, implements governmental policy through more concrete decisions and guidelines. If, for instance, the Government declares the abuse of narcotic drugs the most serious social problem in Sweden, and the main aim of the policy in this area must be ‘the society free from narcotic drugs’, it is obvious that the room for refraining from reporting narcotic drugs offences is very limited. Also, the prosecution service plays a very important role as the prosecution service can control the activity of the police through procedural decisions.
The second possibility for the police to stop proceedings regarding an offence before a preliminary investigation has been instituted, consists in imposing summary fines (ordningsbotföreläggande). The proceedings involved are regulated in ch. 48 sect. 13 - 20 Code of Judicial Procedure (CJP) and by the Regulation concerning summary fines (Ordningsbotskungörelse, 1968:199).
According to ch. 48 sect. 13 CJP, the summary fines may be imposed as a penalty only for those offences that could be sentenced by fines that is by imposing a certain sum of money, but not day-fines.
In consultation with the National Police Board, the Prosecutor-General has issued a regulation determining offences, which may be punished by police by means of summary fines (Riksåklagarens föreskrifter om ordningsbot för vissa brott, 1999:178). This Regulation contains a list of such offences, as well as the sums that shall be imposed for each one of the offences on the list. Above, all the list of offences includes offences in road traffic (about ninety percent) but also offences in connection with border crossings (Penalties for Smuggling Act). The National Police Board has published more detailed instructions concerning proceedings when imposing summary fines (Rikspolisstyrelsens föreskrifter och allmänna råd om tillämpningen av ordningsbot inom Polisen, RPSFS 2000:10).
The proceedings can be summarised as follows. If an offence, which is on the list issued by the Prosecutor-General, has been committed, the police officer is entitled to impose a penalty for the offence on the spot. However, this is possible if the offender has confessed to the offence and accepted the summary fine only. The consent may be given immediately, or – according to the guidelines – within eight days. If the offender has consented to the summary fine, the decision of the police officer has the same consequences as the judgment of the court (ch. 48 sect. 3 CJP). If not, the regular criminal procedure is followed.
In ch. 48 sect. 20 CJP, it is provided that the Government may also give prosecutors and custom officers the power to impose summary fines. As regards the custom officers, such the rules have been laid down in the Smuggling Act. For prosecutors this power takes the form of a summary penalty order, which will be discussed below.
Both the law (CJP) and the guidelines enumerate a number of specific situations when the provisions about summary fine are inapplicable. This is, for example, the case if the offender has committed another offence also, and it is not possible to impose penalty for both of them or if an action of the injured party might be expected and so forth.
After the criminal investigation has been instituted
If none of the measures mentioned above has been taken, and other exceptions mentioned below are not applicable, either the police or the public prosecutor shall institute the preliminary investigation. Pursuant to ch. 23 sect. 22 CJP, it is not necessary to carry out a preliminary investigation, when an offence does not deserve any other sanction than a fine, the case is very simple and the offence has been fully cleared-up. Actually, the only practical difference between this kind of simplified proceeding and the ‘normal’ investigation is the way of documentation of the proceedings. The National Police Board has issued guidelines concerning these proceedings (Rikspolisstyrelsens allmänna råd om handläggning av brottmål utan förundersökning, RPSFS 2000:73).
The division of competence between the prosecution service and the police during criminal investigation in Swedish law is not so easy to summarise. A basic, and very fragmentary, regulation is to be found in the Code of Judicial Procedure (CJP) and in the Regulation on the preliminary criminal investigation (Förundersökningskungörelse, 1947:948). According to ch. 23 sect. 3 CJP, either the police or the prosecutor can institute a criminal investigation. It is not mentioned specifically in the provision, by whom under which circumstances the investigation should be instituted in a particular case. However, according to this provision, when the investigation has been instituted by the police and the case is not of a simple nature, then – as soon as a certain person for good reason has become the suspect of committing the crime – responsibility for the investigation shall be taken over by the prosecutor. If there are special reasons to do so, the prosecutor can take over the leadership of investigation even before someone has become a suspect.
Obviously, this way of dividing the competence between police and prosecutor is extremely vague. Besides, the question of responsibility for the criminal investigation contains a number of other important issues that should be answered by law, but have been left open by the Swedish legislator.
The answers to those questions are to be found in the guidelines of the Prosecutor-General (Riksåklagare) concerning the leadership of the preliminary investigation (Riksåklagarens allmänna råd om ledningen av förundersökning i brottmål, RÅFS 1997:12). The guidelines have been made up in consultation with the National Police Board (Rikspolisstyrelse), which issued identical instructions in 1998. They contain a more detailed division of competences between the police and prosecutor as far as the leadership of preliminary investigation is concerned, as well as regulation of some other issues in connection to this. Roughly, the following can be pointed out to characterise the main principles of the division of competence. The police handle the offences of an everyday nature, whereas the public prosecutor should lead the investigation in more complicated cases, as well as in cases in which the expected sentence is higher than two years imprisonment. Besides, there are a number of different circumstances enumerated in the guidelines, which require the leadership of the public prosecutor (e.g. the suspected is under 18 years of age, the suspected suffers of a mental illness, and so forth).
It should be mentioned, that the guidelines are not compulsory. Even cases that are, typically, more complicated, may be investigated by the police, if the particular case is of a simple nature. A detailed agreement concerning division of competence between the police and the public prosecution office is supposed to be reached on a local level, that is, between local units of the prosecutor office and police authorities, depending, for example, on qualifications of the staff in a given locality and other circumstances.
In the light of the CJP provisions, together with the rules laid down in the guidelines mentioned above, the following conclusions concerning the responsibility for the criminal investigation in an individual case can be drawn.
Ultimate responsibility for the proper criminal investigation – as far as both its factual and legal aspects are concerned – has the leader of investigation. The leader of the investigation is either a police officer, or a public prosecutor (ch. 23 sect. 3 CJP). This means that, if a police officer is the leader of the investigation, he acts independently and the responsibility for ensuring all statutory rules and guaranties rests on him or her. The same is true, of course, if the leader of investigation is a prosecutor.
In principle, the police lead investigations in cases of a simple nature, whereas prosecutors lead investigations in more complicated cases. Some circumstances may cause the investigation to be led by the prosecutor, even if the case itself is of a simple nature.
The basic rules concerning division of competences might give the impression that in those cases, where the police are leader of the investigation, the role of the police is comparable to the position of the public prosecutor. However, in reality, the public prosecutor dominates criminal investigation as a whole.
Firstly, only public prosecutors are empowered to bring a case to court and are, consequently, fully responsible for the case. It means, even if the police work independently as a leader of investigation and have own responsibility for the investigation, the public prosecutor has to have the possibility to control the activity of the police. At some point the prosecutor takes over from the police in bringing the case to court and fulfilling all necessary requirements.
Both according to the Guidelines and sect. 2. of the Regulation (Förundersökningkungörelse, 1947:948), the leader of investigation, if he is a police officer, is obliged to inform the public prosecutor about the ongoing investigation even if no particular person is suspected of the crime in those instances where the investigation concerns a serious crime, the case contains complicated legal aspects, as well as in other situations, depending on the circumstances and the nature of the crime.
Further, if a disagreement between the public prosecutor and police occurs as regards the question who is in charge of the criminal investigation in a particular case, it is the prosecutor who decides the matter. The public prosecutor can also take over the leadership of an investigation whenever he considers it appropriate.
If the leader of criminal investigation is a public prosecutor, he is entitled, according to ch. 23 sect. 3 CJP, to ask for assistance from the police and to give police officers instructions to perform some specific investigative measures. The law does not specify the kind of investigative measures, except that the instructions should be appropriate with respect to the nature of the measure required. Obviously, these requests concern, for instance, measures that require technical equipment, which normally is not at the disposal of the prosecutor office.
Decision-making during the criminal investigation is divided between police authorities and public prosecutors in the following way.
As a leader of the investigation, a police officer may discontinue the investigation (or refrain from instituting it) independently of the prosecutor, if it is obvious that the act is not a crime, or the crime cannot be proved (ch. 23 sect. 4 CJP).
If the police authority has decided not to institute a criminal investigation or to discontinue an investigation which is going on, and the decision is appealed by the injured party or other persons entitled, it shall be re-examined by the public prosecutor.
The criminal investigation can be discontinued due to the reasons enumerated in the ch. 23 sect. 4a CJP also, that is, because of economical reasons (the investigation is too expensive with respect to the nature of the crime), or a decision on diversion according to ch. 20 sect. 7 (waiving of prosecution) can be expected. The decision to stop the investigation in these situations may be made by the public prosecutor only.
Section 4a was added in 1982, as part of a reform of the preliminary investigation, with the purpose of establishing justified economic efficiency. In the government bill concerning this amendment, the Minister of Justice motivated the proposal by pointing out the necessity to find a solution to situations, where a very costly investigation has to be carried out in order to prosecute a negligible offence. For instance, if prosecution of an illegal trespass on the property of another landowner requires complicated surveying, at the same time, as the offence itself is relatively negligible, the prosecutor should have the possibility to discontinue the prosecution. A similar situation may arise by prosecution of illegal fishing or hunting, etc. Thus, generally, the possibility of discontinuation (or not instituting) an investigation for the reasons mentioned in this provision presupposes a considerable disproportionality between the costs of the investigation and the importance of the public interest affected.
As regards discontinuation of an investigation or the decision to refrain from instituting an investigation, where waiving of prosecution can be expected, one could ask, why not to waive a prosecution directly, instead of discontinuing it according to sect. 4a. The reason is, that the waiving of prosecution pursuant to the ch. 20 sect. 7 CJP is allowed if the offence has been fully cleared-up only. The provision sect. 4a makes it possible to discontinue the prosecution for the same reason, but without the necessity of clearing-up the offence. Section 4a was supposed to be applied restrictively and indeed the number of cases where the provision has been applied has been very low (2000: 29 cases; 2001: 52 and 2002: 91).
The public prosecutor shall take over the leadership of a criminal investigation if a necessity to use some means of coercion arises. However, the police as a leader of investigation may carry out a minor house search, a personal search, seizure and some other similar, less encroaching coercive measures.
The conclusion here is that, even if the Swedish police have a relatively wide competence to act independently during criminal investigation, the public prosecutor service has main responsibility for criminal investigation and, consequently, a dominating position during it. Legal regulation is not always precise enough in this respect, in the sense of a clear determination of obligations of the two authorities between themselves. It seems that the Swedish legislator has emphasized co-operation and agreement between the police and prosecution service more than a clear and strict division of powers.
