Administrative law, Constitutional review, Human rights and EEA

We assist in administrative law cases, including testing the validity of administrative decisions in relation both to the Constitution, human rights, and EEA law.

Our lawyers have broad experience from administrative law cases, from traditional validity lawsuits to cases where the limits of the authorities’ competence under the Constitution, ECHR or EEA law are at issue. Our lawyers have extensive experience with constitutional interpretation and human rights methods, and regularly assist e.g., in cases concerning violations of Article 105 of the Constitution and the protection of private property rights in ECHR Additional Protocol 1 Article 1. We also assist in cases of violations of the rights and obligations of EEA law.

Emanuel Feinberg was one of two litigators for Greenpeace and Natur og Ungdom in the so-called Climate Action on the validity of decisions to award licences for oil and gas extraction in the Barents Sea (HR-2020-2472-P). The case was based on Article 112 of the Constitution, Article 2 and 8 of the ECHR, the administrative requirements for proper case handling, and EEA’s legal requirements for investigating climate impacts. The case has been appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Anders Ryssdal has extensive experience in litigating constitutional and human rights issues before the courts. He has brought several precedent cases within these fields, such as the Bølgepapp case (Rt. 1994 p. 610) on the ECHR’s position in Norwegian law before the Human Rights Act, the Double Punishment II case (Rt. 2002 p. 497) on additional tax, and Øvre Ullern-terrasse (Rt. 2007 p. 1281) and HR-2019-1206-A on the Ground Lease Act’s relation to Articles 97 and 105 of the Constitution and EHRC AP1-1.

Jon Wessel-Aas has significant experience in litigating cases that have raised questions regarding the Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and EEA law. This includes several cases in the Supreme Court  clarifying issues such as the Constitution’s prohibition against prior censorship and the Supreme Court’s extended competence in cases concerning breaches of the ECHR (Rt-2007-404), freedom of speech versus copyright (Rt-2010-366 and HR-2022-1113-A), press freedom versus privacy rights (Rt-2015-746), claims for the press’ access to criminal case documents under the ECHR (Rt-2015-1467), the relationship between database protection and freedom of speech (HR-2019-1725-A), freedom of speech versus hate speech regarding gender identity (HR-2022-1843-A), and the relationship between freedom of speech and the prohibition in the Courts Act against broadcasting audio recordings from criminal cases (HR-2022-2106-A).