Please note that the disputation will be streamed and some of the seats behind the candidate and the opponents will be visible for those who are watching.
Participate at the disputation here
The disputaition will be held in Norwegian
Trial lecture - time and place
Adjudication committee
- Professor Hans Petter Graver, University of Oslo (Chair and 1st opponent)
- Professor Peter Pagh, University of Copenhagen (2nd opponent)
- Professor Sigrid Eskeland Schütz, University of Bergen
Chair of defence
Vicedean Vibeke Blaker Strand
Supervisors
- Professor Finn Arnesen
- Professor Halvard Haukeland Fredriksen
Summary
Remedying decisions in breach of EEA-law
One of the tasks of the administration is to make decisions. If the administration errs, it must consider the legal consequences of the error – whether and how the error should be repaired. Must the administration order the demolition of a cabin on the beach that should never have been permitted, or can the administration still give the owner permission to let the building stand? Must a permit to build a wind farm be withdrawn? Must a person's disability pension be stopped, and should improperly paid pension be reclaimed?
Many of the decisions made by the administration fall within areas affected by the EEA Agreement. If the administration makes a mistake and issues a decision that is in violation of an EEA legal obligation, it must determine what legal consequences the mistake should have. The Immigration Authority may have issued a deportation decision in violation of EEA law, or NAV (Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration) may have made a decision regarding work assessment allowance in violation of EEA law. This raises the question of whether EEA law imposes any requirements on how the administration rectifies such errors. In the dissertation, I discuss whether decisions suffering from EEA legal errors must be declared invalid and amended or if the error can be rectified while maintaining the decision. I also consider whether the administration must change the decision without anyone requesting it, and whether it matters if a private party has already adjusted to the decision that has been made.
I have three main objectives with this dissertation. Firstly, I map out the requirements that EEA law places on administrative rules governing the legal consequences of errors. Secondly, I examine how these requirements interact with Norwegian administrative rules. The third objective is to clarify what EEA law does not demand when the administration has violated an EEA obligation.
As a general rule, the administration's breaches of EEA obligations are enforced at the national level in accordance with each state's national rules. As long as there are no specific EEA legal rules in the area, it is up to the states to determine the substantive consequences of breaches of EEA law.
The requirements that EEA law places on national legal consequences for breaches therefore concern exceptions to the principle that the administration decides for itself. I systematize the EEA legal principles that limit this principle based on how they operate in national law. I distinguish between requirements that apply within the framework of national law and requirements that also apply outside the framework of national law.
In the dissertation, I demonstrate how the European Court of Justice has anchored an obligation to rectify mistakes in the principle of loyalty in TEU Article 4 (3), and I conclude that a similar obligation to rectify can be derived from the EEA Agreement Article 3. I start from the premise that if the administration has the opportunity to rectify breaches of EEA law, EEA law requires that this opportunity be utilized. However, the obligation to rectify is not absolute, and I also discuss in which cases the administration does not have such an obligation. In light of practice from the European Court of Justice, I assume that the administration is not obliged to rectify decisions considered "final," and I discuss what this means in a Norwegian context. The obligation to rectify is supplemented by the principle of effective legal protection, the principle of equivalence, and the principle of effectiveness. In the dissertation, I demonstrate how these principles affects and impose requirements on Norwegian rules on complaint outcomes, invalidity, and revocation.