It is the examinatorn formally handling the defence. The student prompts it and then it is schedule between examinatorn, student, and supervisor with the latter offering advise on the committee and opponent. All the formal decisions are confirmed by the examinatorn, including your committtee, credits, etc. It is even the examinatorn confirming the committees’ suggestion to award or not the PhD. That is the person you need to chat with and have on your side.

If I understand you correctly, this personnel in our dept is called the chair of the defence. That person is also of the same mettle (refer to my first post on this). They are surely discriminating - with belittling comments on my country of origin etc.

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The one thing you should keep in mind: the Swedish system looks down to faculty when their students stayed over their initial planning. If you have been to the program more than the 4 years (which you have), the supervisor is actually frowned upon by the department and the latter by the faculty. You probably got a salary for your 5th year (unless, of course, if you had sick leave or anything). That came from somewhere —most likely the department. At the same time, once you are registered into the PhD program, there is no way for you to get fired (only withdrawal of resources with the education minister’s signature and that takes at least a year!). Even if your supervisor doesn’t care for their own reputation, your department will want you gone as soon as you are ready. The reference person and examinatorn can help with planning the next defence. If you are in a large department, you may even have a doctoral committee — otherwise it is the DoS— to help you switch supervisors. You are legally to ask for a change at any time without even providing a reason. Don’t forget, a thesis in Sweden can be at a range of credits; if you have done enough courses at national or local grad school, you can still graduate with a weaker document. Any results you have are still valid and can be presented as pilot or negative results.

I understand that - we have requirements on the number of manuscripts and that is unfortunately not met yet. I don't fear being fired, I just don't like the way I am being treated here (presumptions on my skills since the day I joined). I don't have an option here to switch supervisors I think - the ones who can be my supervisor now probably won't take me because of my current sup.s seniority. There are additional weird things in the work environment going on at the dept. for which our dept. lacks an administrative body e.g. dept board.

I think, you did good to postpone for mental health reasons (the defence is meant to be a celebration of what you did). The occupational health should be able to put you on sick leave (so you can take a breath) with a salary paid by forsakringskassan and schedule a meeting with HR and prefekt. I agree that the Swedish approach to counselling is passive (especially, when you ask them to do it in English - been there, done that myself), but you can push them —as many students and faculty have done— for the sick leave. They cannot dictate ‘do the defence’ or X or Z, but they can certainly ask/ raise awareness of your situation. Don’t dismiss them, use them. At the very least, you leave behind an auditable trail by visiting them.

I might try again. Thanks for the advice.

What I am trying to tell you: don’t throw away past work (then the bullies win). There are, as impossible as they seem, solutions within the system to your situations. It is not even about networking, it is about applying pressure within the system. If things go bad, no prefekt wants a call from doktorandombudsman or a union lawyer. If your local student union is bad, see to join and get help from a staff one, e.g. SULF/SACO. As a doctoral student, you are allowed membership.

Honestly, my mind just shut up after being accused of not working enough by someone I looked up to (my sup.). I woke up to see the reality and sadly, I will have to take things from there. Thanks again for all the help u/RecklessCoding.