ABSTRACT
In dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden for several reasons stands out in a European context. In general, most but not all measures have been soft in character in the sense that they do not impose legal obligations, and Sweden did not impose a total lockdown. The main idea behind this policy was that measures needed to instil voluntary adherence instead of being legally enforced, in order to be sustainable. It is clear that the responsible Swedish administrative agency (Folkhälsomyndigheten) from the beginning adopted a long-term strategy, based on science and experiences from other pandemics. The main criticism of the Swedish approach can be summarised as the timing of measures taken (described by some as a lack of understanding of the initial urgency), the decentralised health care and crisis management system, and the lack of resources to test and conduct contact tracing in the initial phase of the pandemic. This chapter analyses and explains the Swedish approach from a constitutional law perspective.
