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Abstracts til NOS-HS Workshop III: Lars Kvestad

Lars Kvestad (Bergen): Norwegian judicial activism through the lens of trust and religion in the 18th and 19th centuries

In accordance with "Gute Policey", a stable society is dependent on its inhabitants trusting their rulers, also in absolutist eras. Norwegian adjudication processes may prove that trust is enabled by the institutional role of religion. The paper focuses on the Norwegian lawbook of 1687, whereby judges could not go beyond the provisions of written law. As empirical research shows, judges nevertheless took decisions outside the provisions of the law book quite soon after 1687, something that was necessary to clarify the case law they were confronted with, spanning reasoning based on analogy and judicial discretion. The paper thus asks whether and how the judicial engagement beyond textual interpretations could be legitimized. To answer the question, the analysis understands legitimacy in both secular and religious terms, and reviews relevant caselaw from Norwegian rural courts, primarily related to land cases.