District courts of Sweden
Trial-level courts in the Swedish judiciary
The district courts of Sweden (Swedish: tingsrätt) are the court of first instance for the general courts in Sweden. The next instance are the courts of appeal (hovrätt). The district court handle criminal cases, some civil law disputes and a number of non-contentious matters. There are 48 district courts across Sweden, and the catchment area is based on the geographic boundaries of several municipalities. The number of employees vary, from ten to several hundreds.
Types of cases
The general courts in Sweden deal with criminal and civil cases. Criminal cases are the cases in which someone stands trial under the suspicion of having committed an act defined in the Swedish Penal Code or in another law, for which a sanction is prescribed, like theft or tax offences. Civil cases are cases where two parties are in disagreement, for example, over the contents of a business agreement or cases relating to family law. The district court also handles a number of other non-contentious matters; such as adoption and appointment of legal guardians. Proceedings are generally open to the public, but access can be restricted for example in cases about sexual offences.
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This entry incorporates text from “District courts of Sweden” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.