Norwegian Courts Decide in Favor of Public Access to Written Law
canopic jug writes:
Web pioneer, standards activist, and co-founder of the Pirate Party of Norway, Hikon Wium Lie, writes that not only has the Norwegian public's access to its own written laws been re-confirmed but that his project has been credited for bringing the court around to that decision. Hikon has been leading the work to publish Norwegian law online since 1994 and the right to print the law goes back to the early 1800s and the Norwegian constitution.However, in 2018 he and his project were sued by a private foundation wishing to block that right.
We have fabulous news! The Norwegian government has announced an effort to give the public access to court decisions - and credited the rettspraksis.no project for being the inspiration!
As inspiration, Frilich refers to the rrettspraksis.no project ... which published court decisions freely on the web. Two of the volunteer behind the project, Hikon Wium Lie and Fredrik Ljone, were sued by Lovdata and finally lost in the Supreme Court.
-Their case was idealistic, and they tried to make it happen by themselves. They finally lost in the Supreme Court, but won my and many others' hearts. Their principles were clearly right, says Frilich.This is a stunning development in a case that could easily have ended up with two people being sued and silenced by a mighty monopolist. Support from our fellow citizens, combined with our strong beliefs in public access to public information made us fight the lawsuit rather than back down. As a result, we liberated 166 years on Norwegian Supreme Court decisions. But the Supreme Court itself barred us from publishing decisions from 2003-2008. More on that below.
Earlier on SN:
Court Bites Hikon Wium Lie Over Public Domain Norwegian Court Decisions (2018)
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