BHHRG

Parties which are outside the centre-left/centre-right consensus, even though not necessarily particularly hard left or right find it difficult to get access to the media whether in its news coverage or advertising space. The high cost of newspaper and journal distribution through the PressByran network which appears to have an effective monopoly on retail outlets for news and current affairs makes marginal viewpoints still more marginal in Sweden.
The Swedish Democrats complain that their attempts to place advertisements have been boycotted by the news media. According to the Swedish Democrats some media refuse their materials point blank, while others invoke their need to show solidarity with an informal media “blackout” of the “extremists”. Private media may have the right to pick and choose whom they permit to advertise, but when nationwide public organizations like Swebus choose to provide a platform for some but not other legal parties then the fairness of the campaign may be drawn into doubt.

Although the Swedish PR system appears to guarantee equal chances and reasonable local access to all potential points of view, there are features of the electoral system which, despite being in force for many years, are of dubious value. Like most people in Britain, most Swedes are understandably proud of their long history of parliamentary government. However, as in Britain complacency about election procedures can creep into the system and make people unaware of emerging flaws or even irregularities and cheating.
Although initial counts in the individual polling stations around the country are open to observers from the different parties and members of the general public, participation of non-members of election commissions throughout the whole counting process is not universal. Where all members of the local commission are known to each other and may be friends/comrades, even if not drawn from the same party, there is always the risk of collusion in counting. This, admittedly small risk, is magnified by the very large number of ballot papers floating around the country. Given that voters, and even non-citizens, can pick up ballot papers at post offices around the country at least 18 days before the election day, the possibility of “valid” ballot papers being available to substitute for ballots actually cast exists.

Sweden is one of Europe's oldest democracies, but are its elections as correct and fair as the country's reputation would suggest...
This Group’s election observers are often asked by ordinary voters in the post-Communist societies where much of the BHHRG’s activities take place whether there aren’t enough problems back home in the West to keep them occupied. Unlike some other human rights groups, the BHHRG’s observers have never operated on the presumption that they come from states of perfection to observe others. As readers will remember, this Group suggested that serious flaws are apparent in the existing British electoral system and that they are likely to be worsened by proposals to make voter turnout rather than ballot security the key criterion in future regulation of elections in the U.K.
A Swedish correspondent, who shares an interest in much of the Group’s monitoring of human rights and democracy in the Balkans especially, suggested that the BHHRG should monitor aspects of the forthcoming Swedish general election. Along with several other academics, journalists, lawyers and political activists, he suggested that the run-up to the polls on 15th September, 2002, would be a suitable time to study what was happening in the Swedish general election campaign but also some of the controversial issues omitted by common consent of the parties already sitting in the Riksdag.

The Irish and European political classes clearly received a considerable shock when the Irish voted No to Nice in June 2001.  Dublin decided almost immediately to prepare the ground for a new referendum.  Indeed, the determination of the political class as a whole to force Nice through is evidenced by the fact that both of the main political parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, campaigned for a yes vote.  Like political classes across Europe, the desire for unaccountable power in Ireland is great enough to unite all sides in pressing for ever close European integration.
The preparations for the second referendum were minutely laid.  The first change was radically to overhaul the role of the Referendum Commission which is responsible for running referendums in Ireland.  That Commission had been created in 1998, following an appeal to the country’s Supreme Court in 1995 by the Green Party Member of the European Parliament, Patricia McKenna.

On 19th October, the Republic of Ireland held a second referendum on the Nice treaty. That treaty, signed at Nice in December 2000, restructures the European Union, ostensibly with the aim of permitting the accession of 10 new member states in 2004. The first Irish referendum on Nice, which had been held in June 2001, had produced a clear negative result, to which the Irish government reacted by telling the other EU member states to press ahead with their ratification processes. This they duly did, and so when the Irish government put the same treaty before the Irish electorate a second time, a fait accompli had been created, in which Ireland was the only country not to have ratified the text. All other EU states ratified the treaty through parliamentary means. It is a sad reflection on the state of democracy in Europe that the only country to have held a democratic vote on this latest stage in the EU integration process should have deliberately ignored the results of a perfectly legitimate vote in 2001, only to submit the text again a year later. It goes without saying that referendums which produce Yes results are never run a second time.

It is often claimed, especially by opponents of euthanasia, that one of the reasons why euthanasia is practiced so widely in the Netherlands is that palliative medicine is underdeveloped there. Palliative medicine is medical treatment whose purpose is to cure symptoms where there is no hope of curing the underlying illness. This was developed, especially in England, after the Second World War.
A leading opponent of euthanasia in the Netherlands is Dr. Karel Gunning. He presides a Dutch and an international organization of anti-euthanasia doctors. He is highly critical of the present arrangements, and says, "The whole law is complete nonsense because doctors know in advance that they cannot be punished. If they fill in the forms wrongly (explaining why they put an end to their patients’ life) they will simply be asked to fill them in again."

The proposed new law has been introduced into the lower house of the Dutch parliament by the Minister of Justice, Bank Korthals, and the Minister of Health, Dr. Els Borst. A provision is to be included in the Netherlands Criminal Code which would provide for the termination of life on request and assistance with suicide would not be punishable if certain criteria were fulfilled. The bill is a consequence of the coalition accord which led to the present coalition government, involving the Labour party and two Liberal parties.
The two conditions under which a physician will not be subject to prosecution are:
The physician must have fulfilled the requirements on due care, as laid down in a separate act, namely the Termination of Life and Request and Assistance with Suicide (Review) Act.

In dealing with this exceedingly difficult area of medical ethics, it is illustrative to compare the difference in philosophical approach between Dutch doctors and their colleagues in other countries.
As a matter of moral principle, the British Medical Association makes a distinction between, on the one hand, breaking off or withholding treatment which is artificially prolonging the dying process or which is counter-productive, and, on the other, measures taken with the intention of ending a person’s life. In other words, it draws a distinction between allowing death to occur and causing it. Its guidelines say that doctors should never withhold treatment with the intention of hastening death.

The extent to which the practices of euthanasia, assisted suicide and other forms of doctor-assisted death have flourished in the Netherlands are relatively well understood, thanks to two surveys conducted confidentially in 1990 and 1995 by the Dutch government. They came to the following findings: