Sweden was until recently a fairly homogenous country. It is also a strongly secular country, albeit within a Lutheran Church tradition. Its population is only around 10 million. However, the proportion of foreign-born inhabitants increased from 6.7 % in 1970 to 19.1 % in 2010 and continues to...

Macedonian national law as an heir of ex-Yugoslav law is a continental, civil-law system. The court system is based on strict hierarchy, with basic courts, appellate courts and one Supreme Court. Discrimination was criminalised by the Penal Code (article 417) in 1996, although there has been no...

Turkey is a unitary state following the system of Roman Law. It has a parliamentary system. Parliament (the Turkish Grand National Assembly) is the legislature. It enacts the laws. The Constitution is the fundamental law. Laws and regulations cannot contradict the Constitution. If there is an...

The Slovak Republic is one of the two (the other is Czech Republic) successor states established after the political change on 1 January 1993, based on Constitutional Act No. 542/1992 Coll. on the Dissolution of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. Slovakia is a unitary state, divided into...

Irish law consists of a written Constitution. The Government in Ireland is divided between a legislature, executive and judiciary. The national legislature (the Oireachtas) comprises the President of Ireland and two houses namely the upper chamber Seanad Eireann and the lower house Dáil...

The Principality of Liechtenstein is one of the smallest countries in Europe, with only 36 000 inhabitants. Political power is shared equally between the elected Parliament/the people and the monarch. The Parliament decides on new legislation, which can be amended by the electorate by means of...

The authority to enact laws is vested in the Swedish Parliament (the Riksdag). The Government, however, has the power to issue decrees concerning less important matters. To some extent this power stems directly from the Instrument of Government. But the Government can also be granted authority...

The Portuguese legal system is mainly a statutory law system, headed by the Portuguese Constitution and developed by state legislation. Where employment and industrial relations are concerned, collective agreements are also a key element of the system but they cannot go against mandatory legal...