8th of March - the anti corruption day

It is the International Women's Day, and I find myself being an angrier feminst than ever. I am born 1980, and it seems to me that we have already passed the Peak Democracy, sometime around 1995. Society is definitely more traditional, more conservative and more male dominated than it was ten or fifteen years ago.

One example of this is the horrendous rulings by the Swedish Supreme Court. Two weeks ago the court ruled that the men who had bought and sold a 15 years old disabled roma girl in the center of Malmö were free of guilt, and the girl was probably lying. One of several similar cases where men who have been convicted in lower courts for crimes against women are freed in the supreme court.

Utter rubbish, that can only only be explained with one thing - when men commit crime against women, or Swedish against immigrants, judges rule as mildly as possible. Maybe becasue they are all Swedish males themselves.

The Swedish legislation in these matters is strict, and a lot of efforts have been made at combatting this kind of crimes with harder legislation. But the supreme court seems to hold an opinion of their own, that sexual crimes are not really crimes, and in a court the judge's opinion weighs heavier than the politician's.

Which is how it should be in a democracy... at least how it is supposed to work on the paper.  The 20th century showed that political power over the courts lead to tyranny. In the 21th, the independence of courts have turned into a problem. Not only in Sweden - I remember a seminar in Buglaria where environmentalists asked a juridical expert what to do about corruption within the juridical system. The answer was that very little can be done, since politican for good reasons are banned from controlling judges.

When corruption gets into the heart of the juridical system it easily gets very entrenched. The price for that is, as always, paied by those with the weakest voice in society. Like environmentalists, minorities and women. This day is for them all.

Which is why I would like to use this occasion to propagate for a Swedish writere whod edicated her life to the defense of all voiceless people in society - Elin Wägner. She wrote a number of novels, a lot of political writing, and was an activist against war between the world wars. If women like her had power and not only influence, the world would be a better place.

Read about Elin Wägner at Wikipedia
... and on Maladets!