Access, Justiciability and Receptivity: Legal Opportunity and Sweden’s Rights Revolution

We know that legal mobilization has increased in Sweden, and civil society groups have increasingly begun using the legal arena to pursue their aims. This article enquires into the causes of this trend. Why do interest groups groups increasingly use strategic litigation to achieve their aims? Existing literature suggests a number of potential causes, including the judicialization of politics and European influences. We argue that the turn to courts by civil society groups in Sweden has been shaped by developments in the legal opportunity structures. We base this argument on an examination of the development of three key aspects of legal opportunity, showing that accessibility has increased through loosened standing requirement and empowerment of lower courts; that justiciable rights have multiplied in both constitutional and other legislation, and that receptivity has increased through the case law of an increasingly precedent-oriented and diverse Supreme Court. Conceptually, the article contributes to the development of the legal opportunity structure by juxtaposing it with the access to justice concept used in legal practice and scholarship. Furthermore, the article contributes to existing literature on judicial mobilization in two ways. It provides nuance to claims of judicialization demonstrating that domestic development of the judicial architecture contributes to making the courts more accessible and attractive to civil society strategic litigation and it adds specificity to in particular the Europeanization argument by showing how European legal influences are received and implemented in the Swedish legal system.