New Public Administration Act adopted

The Public Administration Act is one of the most important laws we have in Norway, and on June 20 this year, a new Public Administration Act was announced.

The current Public Administration Act dates from 1967, and since 2019, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security has been working extensively on the new Act. The aim has been to modernize and streamline public administration in line with developments in society at large. This purpose is also explicitly stated in Section 1 of the Act, which states that "the Act shall promote legal certainty for individuals and facilitate efficient, uniform and trust-building administration."

It is currently unclear how long it will take before it enters into force, and individual provisions may be implemented at different times and provide for transitional rules.

Compared with the current Public Administration Act of 1967, the new Act has almost twice as many sections. This is a result of the fact that rules that were not previously written down but followed unwritten legal principles developed through court practice have now been codified.

The new act is more transparent and reader-friendly, with a focus on clarity and easy-to-understand language. The preparatory work for the law also shows that great emphasis has been placed on making the law user-friendly, both for the administration and for private parties in administrative cases.

Furthermore, an important change in the new law is that it facilitates technology neutrality in public administration. The new law will therefore facilitate technological development and digitization of public administration. The law therefore stipulates that an administrative body may automate case processing provided that the requirements otherwise applicable to case processing are met.

The current provision regarding the right to reimbursement of significant legal costs incurred in order to have a decision changed in favor of a party is retained in the new Act.