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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. Year 1814 ( MDCCCXIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common A constituent assembly is a body elected with the purpose of drafting and in some cases adopting a Constitution. For the town in Australia see Eidsvold Queensland is a municipality in the county of Akershus Norway. (called Christiania from 1624 to 1878 and Kristiania from 1878 to 1924 is the Capital and largest city of Norway. Events 1521 - Edward Stafford 3rd Duke of Buckingham, is executed for Treason. 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. The Norwegian Constitution Day is the National Day of Norway and is an official national holiday each year
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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. The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4 1776 announcing that the thirteen American colonies then The French Revolution (1789–1799 was a period of political and social upheaval in the History of France, during which the French governmental structure previously an S. and French constitutions, and is considered one of the most radically democratic 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 the Union between Sweden and Norway, and to amend its constitution accordingly on November 4, 1814. The Campaign against Norway, or The Norwegian-Swedish War of 1814 was fought between Sweden and Norway in the summer of 1814 "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional The Convention of Moss was a cease fire agreement signed August 14, 1814, between the Swedish King and the Norwegian Storting. A personal union is the combination by which two different States are governed by the same Monarch, while their boundaries their laws and their interests remain distinct The Union between Sweden and Norway (Unionen mellan Sverige och Norge Unionen mellom Norge og Sverige or the Swedish-Norwegian Kingdom was the union of the kingdoms of Events 1333 - Flood of the Arno River, causing massive damage in Florence as recorded by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani Those amendments were revoked after the dissolution of the ninety-one-year-old union in 1905. Year 1905 ( MCMV) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Several other amendments have been adopted since 1814, the most recent on February 20, 2006. Events 1472 - Orkney and Shetland are left by Norway to Scotland, due to a Dowry payment Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. 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. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including 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). The Storting ( Stortinget, literally "the Great Thing /Assembly" is the Norwegian Parliament, and is located in the capital city 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. A parliamentary system, also known as parliamentarianism (and parliamentarism in American English) is a System of government in which 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 (considering it dangerous to the environment), which a majority of the Storting supported. Natural gas is a Gaseous Fossil fuel consisting primarily of Methane but including significant quantities of Ethane, Propane,
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". PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ 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. The Society of Jesus ( Latin: Societas Iesu, SJ and SI or SJ, SI) is a Catholic religious order MONK is a Monte Carlo software package for simulating nuclear processes particularly for the purpose of determining the neutron multiplication factor or k-effective 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. Suffrage (from the Latin suffragium, meaning "voting tablet" and figuratively "right to vote" probably from suffrago "hough" and originally Universal suffrage (also universal adult suffrage, general suffrage or common suffrage) consists of the extension of the right to vote to
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. Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the The current two written varieties of Norwegian, Bokmål and Nynorsk, were not developed until the late 19th century. Bokmål (lit "book language" or Dano-Norwegian is the most commonly used of the two official Norwegian written Standard languages the other Nynorsk (literally "New Norwegian" is one of the two official Norwegian Standard languages the other being Bokmål. 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. The Sami people are the Indigenous people of northern Europe inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of northern Sweden, Norway In 1814 or 1903, the word Lappish (lappisk) would have been used, but this is today considered to be a derogatory term. Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Finnic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway
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. The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, commonly known as the Pope, and is the preeminent Episcopal see of the Roman Catholic 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 Storting ( Stortinget, literally "the Great Thing /Assembly" is the Norwegian Parliament, and is located in the capital city
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. Impeachment is the first of two stages in a specific process for a legislative body to forcibly remove a Government official 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). The Supreme Court of Norway was established in 1815 on the basis of the Constitution of Norway 's §88 prescribing an independent judiciary
Some constitutional scholars hold that it may be necessary to change the constitution if Norway is to enter the European Union. The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in 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
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