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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, then called Christiania), then signed and dated May 17. It was considered one of the most radically democratic constitutions in the world at the time. May 17 is now the National Day of Norway.
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Writing the constitution
Following the defeat of Napoleons troops at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813 and the Treaty of Kiel of January 1814, the Crown Prince of Denmark-Norway, Christian Frederik, the resident vice-roy in Norway, founded a Norwegian independence movement. The most likely goal of the young Crown Prince was ultimate re-unification with Denmark. His initiative was successful, and a national assembly at Eidsvoll was called. The assembled representaives where appointed at churches (being the only non-governmental channel available in the day) throughout Norway. During late winter and spring of 1814, the constitution was written. The constitution was ratified by the assembly on may 16th, and sign the following day, the latter date now celebrated as the Norwegian Constitution Day.
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 radically democratic constitutions in the world at that time. The principle of dividing power between executive, legislature and courts was directly inspired by the US and French systems.
A deviation from the republican constitutions of France and the USA was retention of a king. Importing republicanism was seen as trying to emulate the French and Americans directly, something the lawmakers at Eidsvoll sought to avoid. The choice of Monarchy as state form would also facilitate reunification of Denmark-Norway, something the Crown Prince was not alone in seeking. The kings power was however severely curtailed. His absolute veto over laws was removed. The council of Eidsvoll not surprisingly chose Crown Prince Christan Fredric as king. He was thus chosen, and as such a king by the grace of the people rather than by the grace of God. In a Europe where almost all countries were ruled by absolute monarchy this was seen as extremely radical. The right to vote was extended to all men who were either farmers possessing their own land, civil servants, or urban property owners. With this, about half of all Norwegian men earned the right to vote.
The union with Sweden
The young king and Norwegian officials tried to find international backing for their bid for Norway as a sovereign state. After failing to secure the support of Great Britain, war with Sweden became unavoidable. After a short and decisive Swedish Campaign against Norway in the late summer of 1814, the King was forced into negotiations with the Swedes at the Convention of Moss.
Thanks to the determined fight put up badly trained and equipped Norwegian Army, and the tactical victory of the battle of Langnes, the King could avoid an unconditional surrender at Moss. Putting the strategic situation and his own abdication to good use, he was able to persuade the Swedish prince Carl Johan (Charles John) to let the Norwegian keep their constitution. The Swedish price, wanting to apeace the Norwegians and avoid a bloody continuation of the war that would have made a union with himself as ruler very uneasy, accepted the Norwegian proposition. Norway then entered into a personal union with Sweden with only such amendments to it's constitution as seen necessary, forming the Union between Sweden and Norway. The Storting adopted the constitutional amendments that were required to allow for the union, and then unanimously elected Charles XIII king of Norway, rather than acknowledging him as such, thus reinforcing the concept a King by the grace of the people.
Dissolution and the second King
The union amendments were revoked after the dissolution of the ninety-one-year-old union in 1905. The question of a King was again considered, and the Storting elected to offer the throne to the 33-year-old Prince Carl of Denmark, married to Maud of Wales, the daughter of King Edward VII. By bringing in a king with British royal ties, it was hoped that Norway could court Britain's support. Prince Carl was however well aware of a surge of republicanism in Norway and of the constitutional situation of the Norwegian throne. He insisted that he would accept the crown only if the Norwegian people expressed their will for monarchy by referendum and if the parliament then elected him king. On November 13th, the Norwegian votes decided on monarchy with a 74 percent majority, and Carl was elected King by the Storting, taking the name Haakon VII of Norway.
Several other amendments have been adopted since 1814, the most recent on February 20, 2006. 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 five years. None of this led to any changes in the constitution; it had withstood the test of hard times.
Development of the constitution
While radical in it's day, the constitution of 1814 was a product of its age. 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 establishment of parliamentarism in the 1870s, 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 2000, when the governing coalition felt unable to accept the introduction of natural gas power stations (considering it dangerous to the environment), 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". A relic from the earlier Danish rulers, 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, a paragraph that has grown strongly controversial[1] Universal male suffrage was introduced in Norway in 1898 and universal suffrage in 1913 by amendments of the constitution.
Language
The events and the constitution of 1814 have a central place in Norwegian identity. For this reason, and to keep the text as consistent as possible, changes are written in a language close to the original. In 1814 Danish was still the universal written language. The current two written varieties of Norwegian, Bokmål and Nynorsk, were not developed until the late 19th century. In 1903 the constitution underwent a very slight linguistic revision, changing the spelling of some words where orthography had changed since 1814, but still retaining a conservative 19th century Danish.
All recent amendments have attempted to imitate the language of the 1903 version, leading to peculiar constructions. The word "environment" is written in the ancient spelling milieu, differing from modern Norwegian and Danish miljø; the modern context of that word was, however, non-existing in the 19th century. The "Sami ethnical group" is "den samiske Folkegruppe", even if the word Sami (samisk) was not common until the 1970s. In 1814 or 1903, the word Lappish (lappisk) would have been used, but this is today considered to be a derogatory term.
Since amendments are elaborated by politicians not competent in 19th century Danish, several modern Norwegian spellings have sneaked into the constitution. Different approaches to revise the language throughout the document have been suggested:
- Bring the language up to today's usage and orthography.
- Use the 1903 standard, but correct various passages where newer amendments do 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 even more 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 constitutional amendment of February 2, 2006 was aimed at reverting 16 minor spelling errors to the proper 1903 forms.
It could be argued that Norway is possibly the only country to have a constitution written in a foreign language. It is certainly the only state to compose new law material in a dead language form, apart from the Vatican which uses Latin. Even the official name of the Kingdom of Norway (Norwegian: Kongeriket Norge/Kongeriket Noreg) would in fact be the Danish form Kongeriget Norge if taken literally from 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 ([2]). 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).
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.
See also
References
External links
- English translation (with latest amendments as of February 2, 2006): The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway from the Norwegian Parliament's (Stortinget) website
- Current Norwegian version (with latest amendments as of February 2, 2006): 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
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 13 October 2008, at 12:30.
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