ABSTRACT
When, in November 1774, Edmund Burke confronted the Bristol voters -in a speech of thanks after the polling stations had closed – with the statement that elected representatives should behave as trustees, independently of ‘authoritative instructions; mandates issued,’ the delegate principle had long been rejected in the Swedish Riksdag. That decision had been taken during the 1740s, in the tumultuous and fascinating period of Swedish history known as the Age of Liberty (1719 to 1772). The burghers in Stockholm had tried to recall the mandates of their Riksdag representatives when the latter refused to follow instructions on an important question (the choice of a new hereditary prince). After heated debates and a politicized investigation – as so often, the struggle had more to do with power than with principle – the Riksdag laid down that elected representatives were bound only by constitutional law, and that their mandate could not be rescinded.
