Forbudene mot jesuitter (opphevet 1956) og munkeordener (opphevet 1897) i Grunnloven § 2 har ikke tidligere vært gjenstand for noen samlet rettshistorisk fremstilling. De har heller ikke vært gjenstand for den samme offentlige oppmerksomhet som jødeforbudet i samme paragraf; forbudene har dessuten kun i sterkt begrenset grad vært praktisert rettslig.
Men jesuittforbudets lange opprettholdelse, 105 år lenger enn jødeforbudet, og dets preg av å være et konstitusjonelt inngrep i religionsfriheten, gjør det til et godt egnet utgangspunkt for analyse av spørsmålet om grunnlovs-konservatisme – her formulert som spørsmålet om bestemmelsens plasse-ring i Grunnloven har bidratt materielt til forbudets opprettholdelse, tolkning og praktisering. Også spørsmålet om religonsfrihetens konsti-tusjonelle status i perioden 1814-1956 blir belyst gjennom den retts-historiske fremstillingen av forbudene.
Denne avhandlingen gir en analyse av forbudenes tilblivelse, bakgrunn, praktisering, omtale i samtidig juridisk teori og ikke minst de tre Stortings-debattene om opphevelse – i 1897, 1925 og 1956.
English summary
The paper examines the history of the Jesuit and monk bans in Article 2 of the Norwegian constitution of 1814.
These prohibitions – originally set forth as waivers from the general rule of religious freedom – were left standing alone when the already adopted rule of religious freedom mysteriously was left out of the Constitution by the editing committee in May 1814. Thus the Norwegian Constitution did not explicitly regulate the question of religious freedom, only ensuring the illegality of certain religious orders and ethnic groups (monks, Jesuits, jews).
The constitutional ban on monks was lifted in 1897; the ban on Jesuits was left standing until 1956. It was lifted only after the Norwegian ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights had been made with a reser-vation regarding the ban. The Norwegian Parliament debated the Jesuit ban in 1897 and 1925 in addition to 1956; the analysis of these three parliamen-tary debates constitutes the majority of the material examined in the dissertation.
The main research question is whether the Jesuit ban´s status as constitu-tional law contributed to its upholding – whether it was subjected to consti-tutional conservatism. To this end, the term ’constitutional conservatism’ and its implications are extensively discussed.
Furthermore, the paper examines the constitutional legal status of religious freedom in Norway during the period. The situation after the Constitution was adopted, first including but subsequently without assuring religious freedom was ambiguous at best; the dividing lines between law, politics and rhetoric were unclear. The debates concerning the Jesuit ban serves to demonstrate the contemporary view of the situation.