Constitution of Norway

The Constitution of Norway was first adopted on May 16, 1814 by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll (a small town north of the country's capital, Christiania), then signed and dated May 17. May 17 is now the National Day of Norway.

History

The Norwegian constitution was inspired by the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the French revolution in 1789 and the subsequent U.S. and French constitutions, and is considered one of the most radical constitutions in the world at that time.

After a Campaign against Norway by its neighbor Sweden, Norway in the Convention of Moss was forced to enter into a personal union with Sweden, forming Sweden-Norway, and amend its constitution accordingly November 4 1814. Those amendments were revoked after the dissolution of the ninety-one-year-old union in 1905.

Several other amendments have been adopted since 1814, the most recent on 30 September 2004. To keep the constitution as consistent as possible, changes are written in a language close to that introduced in the linguistic revision of the constitution in 1903, that is a very conservative Dano-Norwegian.

After World War II and the restoration of peace and constitutional rule, there was much debate on how to handle the events of the previous 5 years. None of this led to any changes in the constitution – it had withstood the test of hard times.

Development of the constitution

The constitution of 1814 was a product of its age, and as Norwegian democracy developed, some parts of it began to look increasingly dated. For example, the executive power, which in the constitution is consistently attributed to the King, came increasingly to rest in his Council of State (statsråd). Similarly, the King originally had the right to appoint members of the Council, who were answerable to him alone, and they could not be chosen from the members of the Storting (the parliament). With the introduction of parliamentarism in the 1880s and early 1890s, the Council was effectively chosen by general election, in that the King appointed only members of the party or coalition having a majority in the Storting. Further, the Council became answerable to the Storting, in the sense that a failed vote of confidence would cause the government to resign. This last happened in March of 2000, when the governing coalition felt unable to accept the introduction of natural gas power stations, which a majority of the Storting supported.

In addition to these changes in practice, there have been many amendments and changes to the actual text. Perhaps the most famous is the removal of the "Jew paragraph". Paragraph 2 originally read, "The evangelical-Lutheran religion remains the public religion of the State. Those inhabitants, who confess thereto, are bound to raise their children to the same. Jesuits and monkish orders are not permitted. Jews are still prohibited from entry to the Realm." In 1851 the last sentence was struck, and in 1897 also the next but last sentence. §12 in the constitution still states that over half of the persons in the council of state have to be members of the state church. ^*

Universal male suffrage was introduced in Norway in 1898 and universal suffrage in 1913 by amendments of the constitution.

Current trends

From time to time proposals are made to separate the church from the state, which would imply an amendment of § 2 of the constitution. This has never been supported by a majority in the Storting but is constantly a matter of debate.

The Norwegian High Court of the Realm is warranted by the constitution and was frequently (mis)used by the Storting as a political tool to control the government in the 19th century, but no impeachments have been made since 1927. A parliamentary report and a proposition for constitutional amendment was presented in 2004 to change the legal basis of the High Court of the Realm and reduce its political bias (^*). For example, the court would be composed of 5 regular Supreme Court judges and 6 lay judges appointed by the Storting, instead of the whole Supreme Court plus the Lagting (1/4 of the Storting).

Some constitutional scholars hold that it may be necessary to change the constitution if Norway is to enter the European Union. However, the debate on the EU has been relatively quiescent since the referendum in 1994, so such a change is not likely to occur for some years.

It has also been proposed to change the language of the constitution to better reflect current usage, or at least harmonise the language throughout the document. Several different approaches have been suggested:

Bring the language up to today's usage.
Use the 1903 standard, but correct various passages where an amendment does not really conform to that standard.
Revert the language to the standard of 1814; an objection to this is that most modern Norwegians would find it very difficult to read.
Update the language to one of the spelling reforms, either 1917, 1938, or 1959. This would still be fairly conservative language, but closer to today's speech.

A parliamentary report has recently been made regarding the correction of language errors without formally amending the constitution (^*).

External links

English translation (current as of June 1995): Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website

Current Norwegian version (with latest amendents as of September 30, 2004): Kongeriget Norges Grundlov from the Norwegian legal information service

Original Norwegian version (May 17, 1814): Constitution for Kongeriget Norge from the Norwegian Parliament's website

Version amended for the Union with Sweden (November 4, 1814): Kongeriget Norges Grundlov from the Norwegian National Library's website, in Norwegian

Government of Norway | Constitution of Norway | 1814 in law | Constitutions

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History

Development of the constitution

Current trends

See also

External links