District courts of Sweden

The district courts of Sweden (Swedish: tingsrätt) are the court of first instance for the general courts in Sweden. The next instance are the courts of appeal (hovrätt). The district court handle criminal cases, some civil law disputes and a number of non-contentious matters. There are 48 district courts across Sweden, and the catchment area is based on the geographic boundaries of several municipalities. The number of employees vary, from ten to several hundreds.

The general courts in Sweden deal with criminal and civil cases. Criminal cases are the cases in which someone stands trial under the suspicion of having committed an act defined in the Swedish Penal Code or in another law, for which a sanction is prescribed, like theft or tax offences. Civil cases are cases where two parties are in disagreement, for example, over the contents of a business agreement or cases relating to family law. The district court also handles a number of other non-contentious matters; such as adoption and appointment of legal guardians.

Sweden is divided into 48 judicial districts (domsaga), as prescribed by the government (SFS 1982:996). The district courts are general lower courts and usually courts of first instance. In the district courts, a judge other than the president of a court or a division of a court is simply titled Judge (rådman). A judge who presides over a division is titled Senior Judge (chefsrådman), and the head official of the district court is titled Chief Judge (lagman). Each district court has a Chief Judge, and usually one or more permanent salaried judges (ordinarie dommare). In order to be accepted for training as a judge one must be a Swedish citizen, hold a degree of bachelor of law at minimum and earned qualifications as a court clerk.

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