Ett trovärdigt våldtäktsoffer - Om Högsta domstolens bedömning av vuxna målsägandes trovärdighet

Sammanfattning: In Swedish courts, the court use free evaluation of evidence, which means that the judges are not bound by rules or methods for how they evaluate evidence. Certain principles, such as the principle of immediacy, set the limits for the evaluation of evidence, but otherwise this is free. It is also permitted to use so-called common knowledge theorems. A common knowledge theorem is the knowledge of a connection between two phenomena that applies generally. In the case of sexual crimes, there is often a lack of evidence such as victim testimonies. Instead, the parties and what they say play a great role in the court's evaluation of evidence. When this evaluation takes place, the concepts of reliability and credibility are common in the judgments. The essay's main question is whether and how the Supreme Court proceeds when they assess an adult victim’s credibility in rape cases. To answer this question, seven judgments from the Supreme Court, doctrine and legal psychological research are used. Finding a clear distinction between the concepts of reliability and credibility seems close to impossible. The concepts are used both in law and legal psychology, where these are defined in different ways by different authors. Even in the Supreme Court´s reasons for judgment, there are variations in how the terms are used. The essay intends to answer how to distinguish the concepts from each other. The analytical part of the essay assumes that credibility is linked to a person and reliability to a statement. Legal psychology is used to implement psychological knowledge in the legal system. Regarding the concept of credibility, legal psychology also studies which factors come into play when a credibility assessment is made. From this research it is clear that people are perceived as more credible if they show stronger emotional reactions when telling stories. We also have certain preconceived notions about how a typical victim acts after an assault that affects how credible we later judge the victim to be. Based on the judgments from the Supreme Court, it can be deduced that the court, in one way or another, makes an assessment of the victim's credibility. However, which factors the court considers seems to change somewhat over time. In early judgments the Court describes that the victim gave a credible impression based on how the victim gave his or her statement. In the more recent cases, this expression is not used, instead it is the action of the victim after the alleged abuse that is discussed in the reasons for the judgment. Furthermore, the analysis discusses how the credibility assessment in the Supreme Court relates to legal psychological research. Among other things, it touches on how the view of rape victims' reactions after the abuse differs between doctrine and legal psychological research. In the first case, reactions from victim are considered to support a reliable statement, while in the latter case, the reactions are considered to be related to the victim's credibility. Based on the analyzed cases from the Supreme Court, the court is of the same opinion as that reflected in doctrine. In the analysis, the courts view on this matter is problematized.