Deregistration attempt of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Norway declared invalid by the Court of Appeal

On Friday 14 March, the Borgarting Court of Appeal issued a landmark judgment declaring the loss of registration and denial of state grants for the years 2021-2024 invalid.

It unanimously concluded that the practice of social distancing does not expose children to psychological violence or negative social control. Furthermore, the Court found that their practice is in harmony with the Faith Communities Act and in compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights.

Jehovah’s Witnesses appealed after they lost the case for registration as a religious community in the Oslo District Court in March last year.

The questions the Court of Appeal has answered are whether Jehovah’s Witnesses’ practice of breaking contact with those who leave their religious community (social distancing) is a violation of the requirement of free entry and exit, and additionally whether it constitutes a violation of children’s rights.

When discussing the awarding of legal costs, the judgement stated: “Jehovah’s Witnesses have been fully vindicated in that the decisions to deny grants and registration are invalid.”

Short overview of the case

On 4 March 2024, the Oslo District Court ruled against the Jehovah’s Witnesses and upheld previous decisions of the government and the State Administrator of Oslo and Viken who arbitrarily revoked the registration of Jehovah’s Witnesses present in Norway for over 130 years and put an end to their eligibility for state grants they had received for 30 years. 

The reason was their social distancing policy of the movement, a teaching recommending that its members do not associate with those who have been excluded from the community as unrepentant of serious sins or have publicly left it and act against it out of disgruntlement. In this matter, Norway’s judgment in 2024 ran counter to dozens of court decisions on social distancing in other countries, including supreme courts.  

Legal experts and scholars in religious studies in Norway and abroad had then agreed that their deregistration was arbitrary and was based on ill-founded grounds. They also stressed that the decision would have a “stigmatizing effect” on the association and its members while the community would lose inter alia its right to celebrate legal marriages with civil effects, which might be considered discriminatory.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have been state-recognized as a religious organization in Norway since 1985 and no criminal case was invoked to take such a radical decision as their sudden deregistration leading to the loss of approximately 1.6 million EUR every year.

The legal dimension of the court decision has been extensively analyzed and criticized by Massimo Introvigne and the undersigned in “Bitter Winter” and “Religion News Service”.

Non-discrimination

State subsidies in Norway are not a gift. The Lutheran Church of Norway, which is a state church, is supported by the government with transfers of money proportional to the number of its members. For the sake of coherence and non-discrimination, the Constitution mandates that to respect the principle of equality other religions should receive the same proportional subsidies. More than 700 religious communities receive state grants in Norway, including Orthodox parishes subordinated to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Rus’ who blessed Russia’s war on Ukraine.

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