Tryggheten inför rätta: Om rätten till förtidspension enligt förvaltningsdomstolarna under tre decennier

The Swedish disability pension program has been a recurring topic for political debate. Through the years the need for an adjusted and financially stable insurance has been commented on by politicians and by scholars. Numerous government reports have tackled both the costs of the program and the growing number of people granted disability pensions. During the last ten years the disability pension system has been accused of being out of date and poorly suited to meet the challenges of the future. At the same time the Social Insurance Agency has been criticized both for treating similar disability cases differently and not adhering to the letter of the law.
During the last decades a number of reforms with the aim to strengthen both the rule of law and the reintegration of people with long term illnesses into the labour market have been introduced. This study, in which I analyse the development of the disability pension program in Sweden, is inspired by current debates about the division of responsibility between the state and the individual. The purpose of the study is to analyse the changes in disability pension policy and their impact on the social right to remuneration for work incapacity. I do this through an in-depth study of how the rules governing the right to disability pensions have been applied by the administrative appeal courts. The appeal court verdicts provide unique information about cases where individuals are not satisfied with the administrative decision made originally by the Social Insurance Agency and subsequently confirmed through lower court verdicts. By comparing appeal court decisions during three different time periods (1983-86, 1993-96 and 2003-06), I show how and why people mobilize their rights through appealing administrative and lower court decisions and what consequence the legal mobilization has on guaranteeing social rights.
The thesis makes a contribution to the theoretical and empirical work on changes in the welfare state, the role of law and governance in modern welfare states, and most importantly on the role of the judiciary as guarantor of social rights.