courts of appeal in norway However, as we have seen above, the lawmen were already earlier free to investigate the case more thoroughly in disputes where the sufficiency of the evidence was in doubt. A legal obligation to do so was nevertheless not introduced before the second half of the eighteenth century. The transition from accusation to inquisition in criminal cases was thus an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process.74 The legislative turn to an inquisition-based procedure was completed by the royal decree of 1796.75 From the late seventeenth century onwards it became more and more obvious that the traditional court system found it difficult to manage the challenges of early modern society and to keep up with standards set by international and national legal scholars and the local legal community. One reason for this was the complicated system of appeal and in addition the demand for oral proceedings on all levels. What was expected now was an efficient and more professional treatment of legal conflicts by state organizations. This caused another fundamental change in the institutional structure of the Norwegian legal order, the introduction of a system of appeal courts with a supreme court on top. Already before such an appellate system had been fully established, a certain number of cases were brought to an institution that later became a paradigm shift); Sunde, Jørn Øyrehagen 2007 p. 94 (who holds the opinion that this was just a first step.) 74 Cf. Sunde, Jørn Øyrehagen 2007 p. 93 f. 75 Cf. Royal Decree of 3 June 1796 chap. IX §30: “When a party has made a statement in the case, the judge is supposed, when he considers it necessary to investigate the case by himself. He can command the prosecutor to hand down documents or testimonies of witnesses, which could prove the innocence of the prosecuted person […]” Cf. in addition § 35, where still some accusational elements are present: “[…] og det skal være Aktors pligt, at giøre Høieste-Ret opmærksom paa det, som, med Grund, synes at fortiene Paatale og Irettsættelse” [And it shall be the prosecutor’s duty to direct the Supreme Court’s attention to actions that, based on just grounds, should be prosecuted]. Concerning the development from accusation to inquisition and back to a process with more accusatorial elements, the parallels with the Danish system are striking, cf. Anderson, Per 2010 p. 18 ff. 298 Overlagting, Herredag og Overhofrett
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