With the intensification of radicalisation towards the end of the Sixties, social policy discussions became more openly politicised and focused on the decision-making processes of Nordic societies. While reformist discourse had focused more on the incoherent implementation of policies; the new interest in decision-making focused more on the legality of these policies. Initially, activists were not challenging the publicly declared principles of Nordic society – equality, individual rights, and democratic decision-making – just the way they were being implemented, but this changed as the radical press adopted a more political stance. The issue of legality first appeared in general discourses that focused on individual rights and equality. While legal arguments were a new strand in radical discourse, the universality of rights was not. In the field of social policy, coercive measures were seen as severely limiting basic universal rights;
patients were not only patients but also citizens.838 Such infringements were not acceptable in a Nordic country supposed to be following the rule of law.839 Legal argumentation and concepts were therefore an intrinsic part of social policy activism from the offset. Liberal Swedish reformists and members of the ML (even before it was founded) had cited the importance of human rights in the past,840 but they had never been invoked as the actual basis for a legal argument before.
Perhaps the single most important universal right that was implicated in legal terms was equality. It had been a hallmark of radicalism since the early Sixties as it combined individual rights, tolerance, and diversity in a single universal concept. Although only a minority of population were subject to actual coercive measures, it did not make them any more acceptable.841 Care practices
838 TiS 12/65, ”En titt in i svensk fängvård”, 8-9; TiS 36/66, Ingrid och Nils Palm, ”Kund hos kommunen”, 4-5; Klaus Mäkelä, ”Pakkoauttajat”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.).
Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 33-57; Ajankohta 2/67, Klaus Mäkelä, ”Pakkoauttajat”, 5.
839 Jacob Söderman (transl. Risto Hannula), ”Tarvitaanko velkavankilaa?”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 58-77.
840 LiBD 1/63, Nordal Åkerman, ”Fångvården från fångens synpunkt”, 22-25; TiS 38/65, Stig Åke Stålnacke, ”Nio frågor om fångvård”, 4 Ylioppilaslehti 26/67, Marraskuun liikkeen valmisteleva komitea, ”Marraskuun liike”, 13; TiS 27/67, Georg
Palmer, ”Såcialvård på våran gård…”, 4-5.
841 TYL 30/67, Hannu-Olavi Piilinen, ”Tiesin ja vähän muutakin”, 7.
which involved isolation and physical punishment were bluntly described as
“illegal” in the radical press.842 Equality could also be employed in both individualist terms as “equality of opportunity”843 and in more leftist terms as
“equality of outcomes”. In many ways, it also bridged the gap between legal minority rights and politics. As one liberal Swedish writer put it: “conscious politics and great efforts will be needed to achieve real equality.”844 In addition to equality, other equally universalist concepts cited were “human dignity” – a strong moral justification for legitimising policies in the radical press,845 and
“civil rights” – particularly in the prison reform movement.846 Understanding that basic universal rights were not being made available to all,847 eventually led to a more complex relationship with statist institutions and state-led approaches that had previously been in the spotlight of the reformist social policy activists.
The rule of law came under greater scrutiny in specific care placement decisions too – frequently criticised because they flouted the concept of equality before the law.848 Minority groups, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, were once again the focus of attention; their treatment before the law was not only deemed unconstitutional,849 but critics also drew attention to the punishing effects of care placements on individuals. Reformist social policy activists explicitly demanded, often in the name of civil rights, that these decisions be brought before an official court of law, and be given the right to an equal hearing.850 Ensuring that people had full knowledge of their legal rights and the establishment of an equal system would offer a welcome alternative to the opaque bureaucracy and arbitrary inequality of decisions that were currently hobbling the legal system.851 Many of
842 Pirkko Sirén, ”Ei kotia ei koulua”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat.
Helsinki: Tammi, 78-107.
843 TiS 45/65, Kai Blomqvist, ”rätt med ord”, 12.
844 “En medveten politik och starkt aktiva insatser blir erforderliga för att reell likställdhet skall kunna uppnås.” LibD 1/64, Birger Möller, ”Minoritet under förmyndare”, 30-32.
845 Konkret 3-4/67, Nårdal Åkerman, “Kriminalvårdsdebattens återvändsgränd”, 7-9;
YL 26/67, Marraskuun liikkeen valmisteleva komitea, ”Marraskuun liike”, 13; TYL 30/67, Hannu-Olavi Piilinen, ”Tiesin ja vähän muutakin”, 7; Pirkko Sirén, ”Ei kotia ei koulua”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 78-107;
Ylioppilaslehti 14/68, Johan Åkerblom, ”Vanki n:o 481 Marraskuun liike on hyvä liike”, 7; YL 14/68, Esko Pirinen, ”Vangin laulu Kakolassa”, 7.
846 Aviisi 8/68, PK, ”Vangin osa”, 3.
847 TYL 9/68, Timo Vuortama, ”Oikeuksien suhteellisuudesta”, 4.
848 Aikalainen 7-8/66, Leo R. Hertzberg, “Koulukotijärjestelmästä”, 29-36; Sosiologia 1/66, Kettil Bruun/PK, 1-2; Siv Dahlin (translated by Matti Haavio), ”Mielisairaala ja vapaus”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 108-125.
849 Christer Kihlman (translated by Risto Hannula), ”Jehovan todistajat ja
asevelvollisuus”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 126-142.
850 LiBD 1/63, Nordal Åkerman, ”Fångvården från fångens synpunkt”, 22-25; Sosiologia 1/65, Kettil Bruun, ”Koulukotijärjestelmämme ja sukupuolisesti hairahtuneet tytöt”, 3-13; Aviisi 25/67, ”Pakkoauttajat”, 1, 8; Jacob Söderman (suom. Risto
Hannula), ”Tarvitaanko velkavankilaa?”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat.
Helsinki: Tammi, 58-77; ”Uudistusehdotuksia”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.).
Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 186-188.
851 Kettil Bruun, ”Yhteiskunnan valvojat ja vapaudenriistot”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D.
(ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 9-32.
these inequalities were embedded in social structures, and this affected the way in which individuals were able to provide information about their position when, for instance, they could not hire a defence lawyer.852 Another factor was that decisions were not based on the same kind of official investigation into matters as would be at the core of a criminal prosecution, with the result, it was argued, that sound decisions could not be made.853 Experts such as Inkeri Anttila, a liberal law professor, supported attempts at strengthening the legal basis of the social care system.854 For Klaus Mäkelä, the matter was simply a choice between constitutional democracy or the control politics of a “care state” (huoltovalta).855 In the Swedish radical press, attention was drawn to the way in which conditional punishments only increased the already significant role of bureaucrats in implementing and interpreting them.856
Calls for institutional care decisions to be judged before the law show a clear faith in the non-partisan nature of the judicial process. Once again, Sweden provided an enlightened example for Finnish radicals, since all cases of juvenile crime were dealt with by a real court, not local social workers. Finnish activists maintained that this Swedish practice ensured juvenile offenders always ended up in the institute that best suited to their particular case.857 The Swedish New Left press, however, did not see this in such a positive light though, as they focused more on rights of the individual, which needed to be at the centre of all care practices.858 Sometimes, the tone was condemnatory; as Bror Rexed wrote in his Brott och straff anthology, statistical evidence showed how arbitrary judges’
decisions could be, and questioned the independency and fairness of the whole judicial process.859 Transnational examples reinforced these suspicions. “The entire legal security issue cannot be judged from a purely legal point of view”, reported James de Gaalitzi from West Germany, “but must be linked to political and national conditions and trends.”860 Even if reforms inside the courts were possible, traditional structures elsewhere in society remained remarkably stable;
education in particular was seen as a key structural factor affecting the way legal professionals approached their cases.861 Widening the range of lay members allowed in court could also bring a more socially diverse interpretation of legislation into the courtroom.862 While the attitude of the Swedish New Left was
852 TYL 31/67, Raija Alho, ”Tätä mieltä/Tiesittekö tämän koulukodeista?”, 6.
853 Klaus Mäkelä, ”Pakkoauttajat”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki:
Tammi, 33-57; Ajankohta 2/67, Klaus Mäkelä, ”Pakkoauttajat”, 5.
854 Ajankohta 2/67, Ritva Turunen, ”Koululaisen oikeus”, 4-5.
855 Ajankohta 2/67, Klaus Mäkelä, ”Pakkoauttajat”, 5.
856 LiBD 1/63, Nordal Åkerman, ”Fångvården från fångens synpunkt”, 22-25; TiS 25/67, Bo Hammar, ”Min kamrat drevs till självmord…”, 3-4.
857 Aikalainen 7-8/66, Leo R. Hertzberg, “Koulukotijärjestelmästä”, 29-36.
858 Konkret 7-8/67, Paul Lindblom, “Socialvården – en klasslagstiftning?”, 86-87;
Konkret 3/68, Bengt Börjeson, “En angelägen utredning!”, 4-5, 67.
859 Konkret 2/67, Ingmar Rexed, “Mot en ny kriminalpolitik”, 71.
860 ”Hela rättssäkerhetsfrågan kan inte bedömas ur enbart juridisk synpunkt utan den måste kopplas ihop med politiska och nationella betingelser och tendenser.” TiS 31/65, James de Gaalitzi, ”Vilka dömer i Västtyskland!”, 16.
861 Konkret 8-9/68, Kaj Håkanson, “Psykiatri, moral och samhälle”, 30-38.
862 TiS 14/65, Ingemar Svensson, ”Vi skall vara allmänhetens samvete”, 3.
markedly more critical, their focus on education shows that there was still room for analysis that did not explicitly rely on Marxist interpretations of the inherent class bias of jurisprudence.
The fact that social care officials had considerable power over the individuals in their care was not the main focus of reformist radicalism. Most Finnish activists, for example, actually admitted that the officials had a right to intervene in personal matters as they represented society; but it was the decisions they took that mattered – they had to be reasonable and unbiased, and this could go some way to explaining the fascination Finnish radicals had for legal concepts.
For Klaus Mäkelä, coercive measures were acceptable, but only as long as the person was being protected from “the despotism of bureaucrats”.863 This bureaucracy was subjected to critical inspection, and the basis for decision-making inside them was questioned. Activists were convinced that administrative control measures were often harsher than criminal sentences from a proper court, as decisions made without the proper legal process could lead to varying consequences, even in cases that were very similar.864 Unlike law courts, there were no consistent standards – even if some administrative bodies assumed the form and name of a proper court.865 As Klaus Mäkelä put it, bureaucrats did not have to concern themselves with the legal rights of the individuals they dealt with.866 In child care services, for instance, rulings were rarely coherent and usually depended on the different reactions of the parents. The child had no official role in the decision-making process, which implied that their legal rights had been sacrificed for the purposes of efficiency.867 Similar criticisms were also levelled at foster care decisions.868
What is interesting in these debates is the fact that most of the activists had medical or social science background, not a legal one. Yet, Swedish criminal sociologists, for example, were rather outspoken about wanting laws to change.869 They were by no means just observing; they were actively suggesting that others outside the legal profession should be involved: “the psychologist, the social worker, and the vocational trainer need to be equal to the judge”870, as Hans Nestius argued in Tidsignal. Having no legal training was not considered
863 Ajankohta 2/67, Klaus Mäkelä, ”Pakkoauttajat”, 5.
864 Jacob Söderman (transl. Risto Hannula), ”Tarvitaanko velkavankilaa?”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 58-77; Aikalainen 7-8/66, Leo R. Hertzberg, “Koulukotijärjestelmästä”, 29-36; JYL 6/68, -K.K., ”Auta armias”, 5.
865 Kettil Bruun, ”Yhteiskunnan valvojat ja vapaudenriistot”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D.
(ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 9-32; Lars D. Eriksson, ”Alkusanat”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi; Jacob Söderman (transl. Risto Hannula), ”Tarvitaanko velkavankilaa?”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat.
Helsinki: Tammi, 58-77.
866 Ajankohta 2/67, Klaus Mäkelä, ”Pakkoauttajat”, 5.
867 Sosiologia 1/65, Kettil Bruun, ”Koulukotijärjestelmämme ja sukupuolisesti hairahtuneet tytöt”, 3-13
868 Pirkko Sirén, ”Ei kotia ei koulua”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat.
Helsinki: Tammi, 78-107.
869 Konkret 2/67, Bengt Börjesson, “Rättsociologins nya kontur”, 68-70.
870 “Jämställd med domaren måste psykologen, socialvårdaren och fackläraren vara.”
TiS 51/66, Hans Nestius, “Fångvård – inte vedergällning”, 11.
an obstacle to them urging that legislation change. As in other spheres,
“purposefulness” was still seen, in many cases, as the best assurance of legal equality.871 A more comprehensive, planned, and “societal” perspective to the concept of “security” was therefore needed, and criminal sociology would help reveal the narrowness of traditional legal argumentation.872 As some parts of the Finnish criminal code dated right back to 1889, it was easy to frame it as old-fashioned and in dire need of modernisation.873 Some activists even went so far as to point out that prison administration laws partly contradicted modern animal protection laws;874 and convicted criminals lost their civil and therefore political rights to vote and stand for election.875 The Swedish New Left argued for practical reforms to be made to legal training to replace moral dogmatism with a more objective, impersonal approach based on behavioural understanding.876
The universal rights approach to social care would cite the United Nations (UN) as a key part of its arguments. This had begun with the founding of the Nordic peace movements, as the organisation had particular significance in neutral countries like Finland and Sweden, and then it began to be used to legitimise radical arguments in other spheres. Universalist arguments could use actual UN sources to support their case, and social care policies were sometimes flagged up for being in conflict with the UN declaration of human rights.877 The ML talked about protecting human rights and following UN recommendations for institutions right from the start.878 The highly abstract and principled language of the UN’s Declaration should not, it was argued, stop it from being applied to local political struggles – for instance, the right of prisoners to get paid for their work, the treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses, or demands for autonomic legal procedures.879 The Declaration of Human Rights was not the only UN text
871 Ajankohta 1/67, PK, 3.
872 Ajankohta 2/67, Ritva Turunen, ”Koululaisen oikeus”, 4-5; see also Ylioppilaslehti 13/68, Esko Pirinen, ”Hyvä, Valentin Soine”, 9; Ajankohta 3/67, Klaus
Mäkelä, ”Onko oikeuskansleri erehtymätön”, 16; TiS 5/68, Carl Gunnar
Edanius, ”Våra verkilga säkerhetsrisker/Här flaggas stolt för ambulanserna men hur är det?”, 8-9.
873 Ylioppilaslehti 13/68, ”Epäkohtia vankiloissa”, 8-9.
874 TYL 17/68, Esko Sammaljärvi, ”Eläinsuojelulaki on, entä ihmissuojelu?”, 6;
references to animal-like treatment also in LiBD 7/65, Maria Berglind, ”Långholmen – en helvetets förgård”, 37-39.
875 Ajankohta 1/67, Ritva Turunen, ”Oikeusturva Suomessa”, 4.
876 Konkret 3-4/67, Bengt Börjesson, “Juristens nya ansikte”, 95-99.
877 JYL 11/67, TuNi., ”Sosiaaliministeriössä olisi jonkun ryhdyttävä ajattelemaan”, 4;
JYL 6/68, -K.K., ”Auta armias”, 5.
878 TYL 28/67, Raija Alho, ”Tapahtui marraskuussa 1967, perustettiin yhdistys”, 3;
Ylioppilaslehti 13/68, Ilkka Taipale, ”Puhe mellakoita pelkääville”, 9; TYL 17/68, Esko Sammaljärvi, ”Eläinsuojelulaki on, entä ihmissuojelu?”, 6.
879 Ylioppilaslehti 13/68, ”Epäkohtia vankiloissa”, 8-9; Ajankohta 2/67, Ritva
Turunen, ”Yhteiskunnan sokeassa pisteessä”, 12-13; Christer Kihlman (translated by Risto Hannula), ”Jehovan todistajat ja asevelvollisuus”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.).
Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 126-142; Jacob Söderman (suom. Risto
Hannula), ”Tarvitaanko velkavankilaa?”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat.
Helsinki: Tammi, 58-77.
that was cited; institutions that demanded inhabitants to work were seen as violating the ILO convention against forced labour;880 while the UN conference on prison care (1955)881 was cited when prison reformers argued that denying prisoners sexual rights were not in accordance with UN directives.882 Radicals believed for this reason that “prisoners feel strong solidarity with the United Nations”.883
It is interesting to note here that the radical press were now using the universal perspective of UN declarations to interpret legal texts in paradoxically moral terms, which quickly began to replace any detailed legal analysis.884 Citing the UN focused attention to the universality of individual rightsand on general legal principles instead of their particular application.885 “Human dignity is the starting point”, declared one student activist from Turku: “It is different from other values (e.g., economic and political). It cannot be used as if it was rational and completely controllable.”886 While in some respects universal rights were being used to depoliticise an issue, freeing said issue from its specific contextual limitations allowed debates in the press to rage over the general question of equal rights in the justice system. “Legal security” became a concept to describe how those with less financial and political clout were in dire need of legal assistance.887 Not only could the wealthy hire lawyers, but because of usually having a higher education, they were more able to speak in the way the bureaucracy expected.888 This meant that, contrary to appearances, not everyone was equal before the law.889 This “hidden”
criminality – the fact that those in a better position could get away with it – showed that the modern Nordic welfare state was neither equal or just.890 This problem was exacerbated by the fact that even a minor conviction could become a social stigma that could ruin an individual’s economic prospects.891 This therefore made prosecution of these minor offences a political act.892
880 Ajankohta 9/67, Klaus Mäkelä, ”Uudistuva sosiaalihuolto”, 13-14.
881 YL 13/68, ”Epäkohtia vankiloissa”, 8-9.
882 OYL 15/68, Juhana Lepoluoto, ”Vangittu turvallisuuden nimeen”, 2.
883 “vangit, jotka tuntevat voimakasta solidaarisuutta Yhdistyneitä kansakuntia kohtaan”. YL 13/68, ”Epäkohtia vankiloissa”, 8-9.
884 Christer Kihlman (translated by Risto Hannula), ”Jehovan todistajat ja
asevelvollisuus”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 126-142.
885 YL 26/67, Antero Jyränki, ”Väkivallan käytön organisointi yhteiskunnassa”, 1, 12;
Aviisi 22/67, PK, ”Ase kädessä”, 5; Ylioppilaslehti 12/68, PK, ”Vankeuden alku”, 3.
886 “Ihmisarvo on lähtökohta-arvo. Se on erilainen kuin muut, esim. taloudelliset ja poliittiset arvot. Sillä ei voida operoida ikään kuin se olisi rationaalinen ja täysin hallittavissa.” TYL 32/68, Kaarina Lehtonen, ”Ihmisarvon pieni joulu”, 1.
887 Aikalainen 7-8/66, Leo R. Hertzberg, “Koulukotijärjestelmästä”, 29-36; TiS 14/67, Ann Margret Dahlquist, L. Junberg, ”Elva kapitel om justitiemord”, 6-7; Ajankohta 1/67, Pentti Holappa, ”Reino Paasilinna: Kohtalo lyö kovaosaista”, 14-15; TiS 44/68, Bo Hammar, ”Sveriges största kommunala rättsskandal”, 11, 13.
888 TiS 45/65, Kai Blomqvist, ”rätt med ord”, 12.
889 Ajankohta 1/67, ”Kirjeitä Paasilinnalle”, 16.
890 Ajankohta 2/67, Ritva Turunen, ”Yhteiskunnan sokeassa pisteessä”, 12-13.
891 Klaus Mäkelä, ”Pakkoauttajat”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D. (ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki:
Tammi, 33-57.
892 Kettil Bruun, ”Yhteiskunnan valvojat ja vapaudenriistot”, 1967, In Eriksson, L. D.
(ed.). Pakkoauttajat. Helsinki: Tammi, 9-32.
Case examples show that the inherent conflict between legal and political concepts began to show in the radical debate, especially among the Finnish radical papers that had been more inclined to borrow legal concepts and definitions and shy away from explicitly political ones. The Swedish New Left was comparatively more clear-cut in its approach, though some reformist voices were still present. It had predominantly defined its stance with the usage of concepts that emphasised the class nature of legislation (see chapter 4.6). One of the Finnish cases that best demonstrates how the usage of legal conceptualisations became more polarised, was when Ylioppilaslehti published a piece on kidney patients in the autumn of 1967. The organ transplant program for kidney patients was lacking funds, and this highlighted the bigger issue that health care in general was not being adequately funded. The demands Ylioppilaslehti made for “a national state of emergency” show how this situation provoked student activists into more direct action. There was no time now for measured opinion building and research; people were simply going to die if activists used established political channels.893 Even the Editor of Ylioppilaslehti, Yrjö Larmola, usually scorned by radicals for his conservative views, argued that purely economic-based arguments about the matter was a sign of political
“backwardness”. To help in the emergency, students organised a spontaneous campaign to collect money for the cause, even if the sum eventually collected only covered the cost of half a kidney.894
While the kidney case illustrates the moralising tendency of this process of politicisation, other interpretations saw the positive empowering side of openly admitting the political significance of radical activism. Indeed, Pentti Holappa – novelist and editor of the short-lived Finnish New Left journal Ajankohta – encouraged them to be incorporated into existing parliamentary procedures.895 This not only showed that Holappa still had faith in the current system, but that the Finnish New Left still trusted the state. This was probably due to the prominence of the cultural intelligentsia in the Finnish New Left; interpreting society through a rigid class-perspective was not the dominant tradition in these
While the kidney case illustrates the moralising tendency of this process of politicisation, other interpretations saw the positive empowering side of openly admitting the political significance of radical activism. Indeed, Pentti Holappa – novelist and editor of the short-lived Finnish New Left journal Ajankohta – encouraged them to be incorporated into existing parliamentary procedures.895 This not only showed that Holappa still had faith in the current system, but that the Finnish New Left still trusted the state. This was probably due to the prominence of the cultural intelligentsia in the Finnish New Left; interpreting society through a rigid class-perspective was not the dominant tradition in these