– I’m stumped, says Johnny Ingebrigtsen, who is both a member of the municipal council and co-judge in Nordkapp. He was surprised when news told him that he is far from alone in this combination. Because in Nordkapp municipality, 9 out of 19 municipal council representatives are also co-judges, i.e. ordinary people who judge in Norwegian court cases. It is stated in the law that they must reflect the population. But news recently revealed that the co-judges in Norway are both older, richer and more “Norwegian” than most people. Now we can say that very many of them are also politicians. Every fourth news has checked the country’s fellow judges against the lists for municipal, county council and parliamentary elections in the period 2005 to 2023 – a total of around 200,000 people. The result: Every fourth co-judge has stood for political election in this period. One of the clearest examples can be found in Nordkapp municipality. Here, fully 75 per cent of the co-judges have been on a political electoral list. And as already mentioned, half of the municipal council are co-judges. Johnny Ingebrigtsen is both a member of the municipal council and co-judge. Photo: private It is also the municipal council that chooses co-judges, and Johnny Ingebrigtsen believes that part of the explanation lies here: – We politicians choose based on the level of knowledge we have, and as a rule it is the politically interested people, says the SV politician. He believes that it is not initially problematic that many politicians are also co-judges. – But it sounds like there are quite a large proportion of politicians, says Ingebrigtsen. Is it problematic that one out of four co-judges is or has been politically active? Yes No Don’t know Show result Not like most people In news’s large survey of 9,000 judges, we found that fellow judges are quite different from the average Norwegian. They are 9 years older than the part of the population who can be co-judges. They earn an average of NOK 200,000 more than most people. As many as 92 percent were born in the Nordic countries and have a Norwegian-sounding name. The difference is even clearer when it comes to politically active people: Around 5 per cent of the population over the age of 18 have stood for election in the last 18 years, compared to 24 per cent of fellow judges. Believes the biases should be corrected Experienced defense lawyer Frode Sulland believes the predominance of politicians has something to do with how fellow judges are recruited. – It has been a practice for the parties to propose candidates and for the co-judges to be recruited from politically active parties, says Sulland, who previously led the defense group of the Bar Association. – It is a bias that should be corrected so that you get a good share without that background. The important thing must be to give the municipalities the tools to do this. Already in a circular from 1999, the Ministry of Justice warned against the trend: “In a number of Norwegian municipalities, practice has developed so that the fellow judges are largely recruited from the municipal board members’ own party ranks.” A survey commissioned by the Lay Judges’ Committee in 2002 showed the same tendency: In half of the municipalities, the political parties in the municipal council were given responsibility for obtaining candidates. Half of the co-judges stated party membership as the main reason why they were elected. Most red-green Dagens co-judges have been elected by the municipal councils that came to power in the election in 2019. If we compare the distribution of politically active co-judges with the results from that election year, some parties come out better than others: Almost half the Center Party and the Socialist Left Party overperform. If we also include the Labor Party, the red-green parties have almost half of the politically active co-judges. 22 per cent The Right and the Progress Party come out worse. Together they had 28 percent of the electorate. But only 22 per cent of the politically active co-judges represent one of these parties. Few from the MDG Environmental Party the Greens come out worst. They had 6.8 percent support at the election, but only 2.2 percent of the politically active co-judges represent them. Community involvement Director of the legal department in the Court Administration, Solveig Moen, is not too surprised that many of the fellow judges are also politically active. – These are people who are involved in society and want to take up positions, so it is perhaps not so unnatural, she says. Moen will not decide whether it is right for politicians to choose fellow judges. – There can be many opinions on that, but we have to deal with the legislation. Our role is to guide the municipalities, and then it is their responsibility to find co-judges who are representative of the population, says Moen. Solveig Moen in the Court Administration believes it is important that the fellow judges are representative. Photo: news / Morten Waagø Hoping for more co-judges who are not politicians This year, new co-judges will be elected. Mayor of Nordkapp, Jan Morten Hansen (Ap), who is not a co-judge, hopes it will lead to a change in the municipality. – We must be aware that we also bring in representatives who do not hold a political position in the municipality, so that it reflects the residents in a good way, he says. The Ministry of Justice has not yet responded to news’s questions about what they think about the fact that such a large proportion of fellow judges have been politically active. In the past, they have stated that the current arrangement is good enough, because it already requires that the co-judges must represent all parts of the population.
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Every fourth co-judge has voted for a political election. – news Vestfold and Telemark – Local news, TV and radio
