english summary 1081 not thoroughly based on statutory law. In Norway, the prohibition against ex post facto legislation was more and more developed into a protection of vested rights. In Swedish doctrine, there is from 1880 to 1896 in the writings of Hugo Blomberg an example of a new approach: the constitution tended more and more to be understood as superior. In Danish doctrine, Carl Goos related judicial review to the protection of rights of individuals, and in caselaw it was confirmed that the constitution was applicable law in such cases. Carl Ussing claimed that the courts, as protectors of rights of individuals, should be made visible, so that the courts emerged as the independent organ of state they were. The constitutional supremacy and the symbolic importance of an independent judiciary was equally expressed in Finland by Leo Mechelin. In the 1880s and 1890s, the protection of the individual through the courts against the state was expressed both in judgments and in the doctrine. The constitutional superiority and the ordering of the organs of state side by side was clearer. This is a similarity between the countries and a difference from the period before, even though the difference was less significant in Norway than in the other countries. At the same time, the German discussion was no longer as relevant as before. In sum, the legal situation throughout the Nordic countries in 1900 was such that the judges could argue for setting aside formally or materially unconstitutional legislation. However, the judges showed much restraint in doing it: only the Norwegian courts took that step that in some cases, as in Rt. 1890 p. 455, where the justices of the Supreme Court preferred their interpretation of the prohibition on ex post facto legislation to that of the legislator. This interpretation, which meant that there were vested rights that could not be restrained, could hardly have been made unless the Norwegian constitution contained a general prohibition on ex post facto laws and the constitution had such a position that the courts applied it. In Norway, there was also a legal culture of constitutional critical judging which had been expressed in judgments of the 1860s and earlier. The case of 1890 should also be seen as a clear indication that the courts took upon themselves the task to interpret the constitution independently. Although the tendency was similar in the other Nordic countries at this time, there was an important difference in that only in Norway did the Supreme Court give effect to constitutional critical judging in controversial cases. This is, along with a judgment from the Norwegian Supreme Court of 1866, the clearest example of constitutional critical judging in the Nordic countries during the 19th cen-
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