Sámi Rights and the Limited Role of the Judiciary in Sweden

In Sweden, the development in indigenous rights has historically come through political decisions in the national parliament, often preceded by an administrative process including parliamentary commissions of inquiry. The role of the judiciary has, in comparison to common law countries such as Canada and Australia, been marginal. In the last decade, however, we have witnessed an increasing number of legal processes in which the Sámi has used litigation and the development in international law as a way to challenge indigenous politics in Sweden. In this paper we will analyse if we can see a changing position of the judiciary in the development of Sámi rights. We identify structural and procedural barriers to such a change, and argue that before judicial interventions may have major impact on Swedish indigenous politics, there is a need for changes on a political or policy level.