Sten Rudholm, born on 27 April 1918 in Karlstad. Värmlander and artilleryman. Lawyer and public official, formerly Chief Justice of Appeal and Marshal of the Realm. He was elected to the Swedish Academy on 10 February 1977 and was admitted on 20 December 1977. Rudholm succeeded Sture Petrén to Chair number 1, which during the twentieth century had by custom come to be occupied by lawyers.
Following basic legal studies Sten Rudholm graduated in law in 1942 in Stockholm, where thirty years later he became an Honorary Doctor of Law at the university. His career may be divided into two partly parallel areas: his practical court work and work as a public official with varying tasks, usually of a judicial nature.
His career in the judiciary after graduation was largely associated with Svea Court of Appeal in Stockholm. After qualifying as a recorder and qualifying service as a public prosecutor, he was appointed public prosecutor in 1945. This is the natural path to judgeship, and the next stage is deputy judge. Having co-authored a Handbook for jurors in 1949, Rudholm became an appeal court judge in 1954 and a judge of appeal in 1961. He crowned his judicial career in 1967 with the position of Chief Justice of Appeal, the chief official of the Svea Court of Appeal.
His career as a judge came to overlap with varying duties as a public official in various appointments, not least at a high legislative level. Between 1955 and 1961 Sten Rudholm was head of the legal section at the Department of Justice with the task of drafting and scrutinising new bills for presentation to Parliament. While in this post he was co-opted to the major Constitutional Commission (1959–1963) as an expert. This commission had been set up in 1954 and was chaired by former prime minister and minister for foreign affairs Rickard Sandler, to conduct an overall review of the Swedish constitution. After nine years, in 1963, the Commission submitted a first proposal for a constitution. In an extremely well-informed article in 1996 Rudholm, together with Nils Stjernquist, describes the Commission’s superabundance of political and juridical complications (“Jörgen Westerståhl som författningsutredare” [‘Jörgen Westerståhl as constitutional commission chairman’], in Vetenskapen om politik. Festskrift till professor emeritus Jörgen Westerståhl [‘The science of politics. Festschrift to Emeritus Professor Jörgen Westerståhl’], eds. Bo Rothstein & Bo Särlvik, Göteborg 1996).
This article gives a picture of Sten Rudholm as a writer, which can be divided into two: the writer of legal text, with a considerable volume of diverse and more or less anonymous texts in e.g. penal law and public law; and the free writer. The free writer emerges above all during his years as journal editor. This was when, after his time as head of the legal section at the Department of Justice and in parallel with his new appointment as Attorney-General, he became Editor of the journal Svensk Juristtidning (‘The Swedish Law Journal’).
This editorial work – in the course of which he wrote numerous articles, primarily of an editorial nature – was an activity Rudholm kept up during the whole of his period as Attorney-General (1962–1967) and until he became President of Svea Court of Appeal, a position he then held for almost seventeen years, until 1983. He was elected to the Swedish Academy while he was appeal court president.
On reaching retirement age Rudholm was honoured with the prestigious office of Marshal of the Realm, Head of the Royal Court (or more precisely the Royal Court Estates, the organisation that supports the royal Family in their official duties). He gave up the office of Marshal of the Realm in 1986.
Over the years Rudholm has been on the boards of a number of companies, associations and institutions, some of which lie within the Academy’s sphere of interest. Of particular note is that he was chairman of The Swedish General Art Association from 1974 to 1983 and a member of the Swedish Language Council from 1977 to 1986.
Language is a subject very dear to Sten Rudholm. His quarter of a century in the Academy offers abundant examples of his glass-clear style as a free writer, predominantly in public speaking, while his inaugural address on his predecessor Sture Petrén witnesses to his care for the language.
Jan Arnald
(Translated by Tim Crosfield)