english summary 1087 1849 but was not filled with content until the case UfR1999 p. 841, where the Supreme Court found that a statute in reality was to be seen as a judgment, and declared it void. A statement of the 1828-30 Swedish parliamentary committee for legislation, dominated by judges, that unconstitutional laws were not valid, is in line with attitudes which currently prevail. The question then is whether there is in Sweden and Denmark, as in Norway, a historical explanation for the attitudes of today. In Norway, a culture of constitutional critical judging has come to the surface in fairly regular intervals, such as 1822, 1866, 1890, 1918, 1940 and 1976. In Denmark, the equivalent years would be 1849 (the discussions at the constituent assembly), 1921 (cases where the Supreme Court declared that it could set aside unconstitutional laws) and 1999 (the just mentioned case UfR1999 p. 841), and in Sweden 1828-30 (the statement of the parliamentary committee for legislation), 1934 (a case where the Supreme Court declared that it could set aside unconstitutional ordinances), 1964 (a case where the Supreme Court declared that it could set aside unconstitutional statutes) and 2005 (cases where the Supreme Court set aside partially unconstitutional ordinances, and interpreted a statute so that it would be in conformity to how the Supreme Court predicted that theECtHRwould decide the case, respectively). A view that there has been a long established constitutional critical culture in Sweden and Denmark is thus less plausible. It is contradicted by the strong loyalty to the legislator clearly exhibited by Danish and Swedish judges, as well as the comparatively weaker constitutional basis of the role of Danish and Swedish judges. These factors limited the role of judges in a different way than in Norway, and the court cases that may be invoked before the 1990s did not mean that examples were set in the same way as inNorway. Constitutional critical judging has to some extent been a counterbalance to the prevailing loyalty of judges to the legislator, not the other way around. The change in the 1990s and the 2000s may indeed be linked to history, but not explained through it. Another explanation must be searched, and it can be found in inspiration from the ECtHR, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the Bundesverfassungsgericht and, indirectly, the U.S. Supreme Court. There is an international judicial culture which the Norwegian Supreme Court was already a part of and which the Swedish and Danish supreme courts have now joined. In Denmark, then Supreme Court president Niels Pontoppidan made this explicit in the 1990s, whereas it is more implied in respect of the Swedish two supreme courts. The Swedish decisions that have followed the judgment of
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