Constitution of Norway - Current Trends

Current Trends

From time to time proposals have been made to separate the church from the state, which would imply an amendment of § 2 of the constitution. Until 2012, this had never been supported by a majority in the Storting but was constantly a matter of debate. In May 2012, parliament passed a constitutional amendment, for the second time, to separate church and state. This formally made Norway a secular country with no official religion, although the Church of Norway is still mentioned in the Constitution.

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 during 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. The proposal was passed by a unanimous Storting on February 20, 2007. The court will be composed of five regular Supreme Court of Norway judges and six lay judges appointed by the Storting, instead of the whole Supreme Court plus the Lagting (1/4 of the Storting), which was done away with at the same time.

Some constitutional scholars hold that it may be necessary to change the constitution if Norway is to enter the European Union, as the first article states that Norway is a "free, independent" country. However, the debate on the EU has been relatively quiescent since the referendum in 1994, so such a change is not likely to occur in the immediate future.

In the run-up to the 200th anniversary for the Constitution, work is underway to see if the Constitution can be amended to be more in tune with the times. In December 2011, a Committee appointed by the Storting put forth its report, suggesting that human rights be put in a separate chapter in the Constitution. Another item on the agenda has been to modernise the language of the Constitution, from Dano-Norwegian to modern Norwegian. Parliament has asked the Secretariat to present two equal versions of the Constitution (in Nynorsk and Bokmål) which could be ratified prior to the anniversary in 2014. Since the amendment to modernise the language of the constitution was put forward, some constitutional amendments have been presented using both modern and 1903 orthography.