A/HRC/55/47/Add.2 are members of Free Churches, the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches, among others, while members of other religions include Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Baha’is. 8. Sweden is among the world’s most secular countries, with, for example, only 23 per cent of weddings currently officiated by the Church of Sweden, compared with 80 per cent in 1970. Christian festivals remain as official holidays. 9. The Government consists of a Prime Minister appointed by the Riksdag (parliament) and a Cabinet of Ministers. The Government is assisted by government offices and over 340 government agencies, which together drive the process of legislation. The legislative branch consists of the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. There are also directly elected legislative institutions at the local, regional and European levels. The judicial branch consists of the police, the Swedish Prosecution Authority, courts, and the prison and probation system. There are three types of courts in Sweden: general, administrative and special. 10. The central Government is small and tightly knit. Sweden is divided into 290 municipalities, each with an elected assembly and council responsible for a broad range of facilities and services. The country is composed of 21 regions, each with directly elected assemblies. Each region is responsible for overseeing tasks that cannot be handled at the local level, notably health care. Regions and municipalities enjoy a very high degree of autonomy and self-direction, including in interpreting and applying the law. The national Government only provides the broad parameters and rules. What this means for freedom of religion or belief is that the environment for, and enjoyment of, religion or belief can differ noticeably across the country. Some authorities acknowledged that the strong independence of regions, municipalities and agencies can lead to poor freedom of religion or belief outcomes. 11. In the wake of several episodes of urban violence in 2013, variously blamed on an excessively liberal immigration policy and on social and economic inequality, the Sweden Democrats, a nationalist and right-wing political party, gained 13 per cent of the vote in 2014, increasing to 18 per cent in 2018 and 28 per cent in 2022. Sweden is currently governed by a coalition of right-leaning parties headed by the Moderate Party’s leader Ulf Kristersson, with the next election due to take place in 2026. The coalition of the Moderate Party, Liberals and Christian Democrats is a minority Government that depends upon a confidence and supply arrangement from the Sweden Democrats based on the Tidö agreement (see para. 62 below). The latter is the biggest of the four parties in terms of number of members of parliament. The Special Rapporteur regrets the disregard of rights obligations in the policies of some of those actors. III. Government cooperation with the United Nations system 12. Sweden is party to most international and regional human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights). 13. As Sweden is a dualist country, ratification of international treaties does not lead to immediate incorporation into domestic law but requires transformation or incorporation. The European Convention on Human Rights has been incorporated into domestic law and the rights enshrined in the Convention also have constitutional protection. While the Convention on the Rights of the Child has also been incorporated into domestic law, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has not. As discussed below, the Special Rapporteur urges the incorporation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights into domestic law to lend support to a more robust protection of freedom of religion or belief. 3 3 GE.24-04001 The Human Rights Committee’s most recent concluding observations noted that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights had not been incorporated in the domestic legal order and, as a result: (a) certain areas of domestic law were not fully aligned with the Covenant; and (b) domestic courts, while able in principle to apply the Covenant by way of an interpretative presumption, rarely invoked its provisions. The Committee also noted that municipalities and other local governance bodies seemed to lack sufficient knowledge about the Covenant (CCPR/C/SWE/CO/7, para. 4). 3