The birth of modern Norwegian police law

Abstract

In the article ‘Norwegian police law, crime prevention and its (need for more) democratic legitimacy’ John Reidar Nilsen argues that Norwegian police law has lacked democratic legitimacy, and in some respects still does. According to Nilsen the patriarchal form of police law in the Danish-Norwegian absolute monarchy continued to make its mark on police law in the Norwegian constitutional state, resulting in a lack of democratic legitimacy. Although questions concerning the democratic legitimacy and legality of police law should be discussed, and Nilsen on several points makes interesting contributions to such a discussion, his historical narrative does not give an accurate description of the features of police law in the transition from autocracy to the Norwegian constitutional state. Police law and the legal understanding of it changed throughout the autocracy and from the latter part of the 18th century, it was shaped in line with new European ideas about state, popular government, and legal order. Instead of seeing the first understanding of police law in the Norwegian constitutional state as a legacy from the autocracy, it should rather be seen as the birth of modern Norwegian police law.