Criticism of Increased Powers for Security Guards in Sweden

Earlier this year, the findings of the inquiry A New Law on Security Guards etc. (SOU 2021:38) was published, proposing increased powers for security guards in Sweden. Civil Rights Defenders is one of the actors now submitting a response to the consultation and commenting on the inquiry’s proposals. We look favourably on several of the inquiry’s suggestions, but also raise serious criticism.

Among other things, we are critical of all the proposals to increase powers for security guards. We believe that it is important to restrict the right of security guards to use force and other coercive measures that infringe on the rights and freedoms of the individual.

“The right to use coercion and violence represents a strong intervention in society. All such activities need to be surrounded by high levels of legal certainty and control in order to ensure that human rights and freedoms are not infringed on beyond what is permissible. Increasing the powers of security guards is therefore not the right path to take,” says John Stauffer, Legal Director at Civil Rights Defenders.

Read all our feedback

Click here to read Civil Rights Defenders’ response to the consultation, where we list all our feedback and elaborate on our reasoning. (Link in Swedish).