Part 180

Article 11. The king shall appoint a governor of the kingdom in his absence, and on failure it shall be governed by the viceroy or a governor, with five at least of the members of council. They shall govern the kingdom in the name and behalf of the king; and they shall observe inviolably, as much the principles contained in this fundamental law as those relative precepts the king shall lay down in his instructions. They shall make a humble report to the king upon those affairs they have decided. All matters shall be decided by plurality of votes. If the votes happen to be equal, the viceroy or governor, or in their absence the first member of council, shall have two.

Article 12. The prince royal or his eldest son can be viceroy; but this can only occur when they have attained the majority of the king. In the case of a governor, either a Norwegian or a Swede may be nominated. The viceroy shall remain in the kingdom, and shall not be allowed to reside in a foreign one beyond three months each year. When the king shall be present, the viceroy's functions shall cease. If there is no viceroy, but only a governor, the functions of the latter shall also cease, in which event he is only the first member of council.

Article 13. During the residence of the king in Sweden, he shall always have near him the minister of state of Norway, and two of the members of the Norwegian council, when they shall be annually changed. These are charged with similar duties, and the same constitutional responsibility attaches to them as to the sitting council in Norway; and it is only in their presence that state affairs shall be decided by the king. All petitions addressed to the king by Norwegian citizens ought, first, to be transmitted to the Norwegian council, that they may be duly considered previously to decisions being pronounced. In general, no affairs ought to be decided before the council has expressed an opinion, in case it should be met with important objections. The minister of state of Norway ought to report the affairs, and he shall be responsible for expedition in the resolutions which shall have been taken.

Article 14. The king shall regulate public worship and its rites, as well as all assemblies that have religion for their object, so that ministers of religion may observe their forms prescribed to them.

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Article 15. The king can give and abolish ordinances which respect commerce, the custom-house, manufactures, and police. They shall not, however, be contrary to the constitution nor the laws adopted by the Storthing. They shall have provisional force until the next Storthing.

Article 16. The king shall in general regulate the taxes imposed by the Storthing. The public treasurer of Norway shall remain in Norway, and the revenues shall only be employed towards the expenses of Norway.

Article 17. The king shall superintend the manner in which the domains and crown property of the state are employed and governed, in the manner fixed by the Storthing, and which shall be most advantageous to the country.

Article 18. The king in council has the right to pardon criminals when the supreme tribunal has pronounced its opinion. The criminal has the choice of receiving pardon from the king or of submitting to the punishment to which he is condemned. In the causes which the Odelsthing would have ordered to be carried to the Rigsret, there can be no other pardon but that which shall liberate from a capital punishment.

Article 19. The king, after having heard his Norwegian council, shall dispose of all the civil, ecclesiastic, and military employments. Those who assist in the functions shall swear obedience and fidelity to the constitution and to the king. The princes of the royal family cannot be invested with any civil employment; yet the prince royal, or his eldest son, may be nominated viceroy.

Article 20. The governor of the kingdom, the minister of state, other members of council, and those employed in the functions connected with these offices, the envoys and consuls, superior magistrates, civil and ecclesiastic commanders of regiments, and other military bodies, governors of fortresses, and commanders-in-chief of ships of war, shall, without previous arrest, be deposed by the king and his Norwegian council. As to the pension to be granted to those employed they shall be decided by the first Storthing. In the mean time, they shall enjoy two-third parts of their former salary. The others employed can only be suspended by the king, and they shall afterwards be brought before the tribunals, but cannot be deposed excepting by order of an arrest, and the king cannot make them change their situations contrary to their will.

Article 21. The king can confer orders of knighthood on whomsoever he chooses, in reward of distinguished services, which shall be published; but he can confer no other rank, with the title, than that which is attached to every employment. An order of knighthood does not liberate the person on whom it is conferred from those duties common to all citizens, and particular titles are not conferred in order to obtain situations in the state. Such persons shall preserve the title and rank attached to those situations which they have occupied. No person can, for the future, obtain personal, mixed, or hereditary privileges.

Article 22. The king elects and dismisses, whenever he thinks proper, all the officers attached to his court.

Article 23. The king is commander-in-chief of all the forces, by sea and land, in the kingdom, and these cannot be increased or diminished without the consent of the Storthing. They will not be ceded to the service of any foreign power, and troops belonging to a foreign power (except auxiliary troops in case of a hostile invasion,) cannot enter the country without the consent of the Storthing. During peace, the Norwegian troops shall be stationed in Norway, and not in Sweden. Notwithstanding this the king may have in Sweden a Norwegian guard, composed of volunteers, and may for a short time, not exceeding six weeks in a year, assemble troops in the environs of the two countries, for exercising; but in case there are more than 3,000 men, composing the army of one of the two countries, they cannot in time of peace enter the other.

[Footnote: The law of the Storthing, 5th July 1816, bears, that troops of the line shall be employed beyond the frontiers of the kingdom, and the interpretation given by it to that law is, that troops of the line shall be employed beyond the frontiers of the two kingdoms.]

The Norwegian army and gun-boats shall not be employed without the consent of the Storthing. The Norwegian fleet shall have dry docks, and during peace its stations and harbours in Norway. Ships of war of both countries shall be supplied with the seamen of the other, so long as they shall voluntarily engage to serve. The landwehr, and other Norwegian forces, which are not calculated among the number of troops, of the line, shall never be employed beyond the frontiers of the kingdom of Norway.

Article 24. The king has the right of assembling troops, commencing war, making peace, concluding and dissolving treaties, sending ministers to, and receiving those of, foreign courts. When he begins war he ought to advise the council of Norway, consult it, and order it to prepare an address on the state of the kingdom, relative to its finances, and proper means of defence. On this the king shall convoke the minister of state of Norway, and those of the council of Sweden, at an extraordinary assembly, when he shall explain all those relative circumstances that ought to be taken into consideration; with a representation of the Norwegian council, and a similar one on the part of Sweden, upon the state of the kingdom, shall then be presented. The king shall then require advice upon these objects; and each shall be inserted in a register, under the responsibility imposed by the constitution, when the king shall then adopt that resolution which he judges most, proper for the benefit of the state.

Article 25. On this occasion all the members of council must be present, if not prevented by some lawful cause, and no resolution ought to be adopted unless one half of the members are present. In Norwegian affairs, which, according to the fifteenth article, are decided in Sweden, no resolution shall be taken unless the minister of state of Norway and one of the members of council, or two members, are present.

Article 26. The representations respecting employments, and other important acts, excepting those of a diplomatic and military nature, properly so called, shall be referred to the council by him who is one of the members in the department charged with it, who shall accordingly draw up the resolution adopted in council.

Article 27. If any member of council is prevented from appearing, and referring the affairs which belong to his peculiar department, he shall be replaced in this office by one of the others appointed to this purpose, either by the king, if personally present, and if not, by him who has precedence in the council, jointly with the other members composing it. Should several of these be prevented from appearing, so that only one half of the ordinary number is present, the other employed in the offices shall in like manner have right to sit in council; and in that event it shall be afterwards referred to the king, who decides if they ought to continue to exercise this office.

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Article 28. The council shall keep a register of all affairs that may come under its consideration. Every individual who sits in it shall be at liberty to give his opinion freely, which the king is obliged to hear; but it is reserved to his majesty to adopt resolutions after he has consulted his own mind. If a member of council finds that the king's resolution is contrary to the form of government, the laws of the kingdom, or injurious to the state, he shall consider it his duty to oppose it, and record his opinion in the register accordingly; but he who remains silent shall be presumed to have agreed with the king, and shall be responsible for it, even in the case of being referred to at a future period; and the Odelsthing is empowered to bring him before the Rigsret.

Article 29. All the orders issued by the king (military affairs excepted) shall be countersigned by the Norwegian minister of state.

Article 30. Resolutions made in absence of the king, by the council in Norway, shall be publicly proclaimed and signed by the viceroy, or the governor and council, and countersigned by him who shall have referred them, and he is further responsible for the accuracy and dispatch with the register in which the resolution is entered.

Article 31. All representations relative to the affairs of this country, as well as writings concerning them, must be in the Norwegian language.

Article 32. The heir-apparent to the throne, if a son of the reigning king, shall have the title of prince royal, the other legitimate heirs to the crown shall be culled princes, and the king's daughters princesses.

Article 33. As soon as the heir shall have attained the age of eighteen, he shall have a right to sit in council, without, however, having a vote, or any responsibility.

Article 34. No prince of the blood shall marry without permission of the king, and in case of contravention, he shall forfeit his right to the crown of Norway.

Article 35. The princes and princesses of the royal family, shall not, so far as respects their persons, be bound to appear before other judges, but before the king or whomsoever he shall have appointed for that purpose.

Article 36. The minister of state of Norway, as well as the two members of council who are near the king, shall have a seat and deliberative voice in the Swedish council, where objects relative to the two kingdoms shall be treated of. In affairs of this nature the advice of the council ought also to be understood, unless these require quick dispatch, so as not to allow time.

Article 37. If the king happens to die, and the heir to the throne is under age, the council of Norway, and that of Sweden, shall assemble, and mutually call a convocation of the Storthing in Norway and Diet of Sweden.

Article 38. Although the representatives of the two kingdoms should have assembled, and regulated the administration during the king's minority, a council composed of an equal number of Norwegian and Swedish members shall govern the kingdoms, and follow their fundamental reciprocal laws. The minister of state of Norway who sits in this council, shall draw by ballot in order to decide on which of its members the preference shall happen to fall.

Article 39. The regulations contained in the two last articles shall be always equally adopted after the constitution of Sweden. It belongs to the Swedish council, in this quality, to be at the head of government.

Article 40. With respect to more particular and necessary affairs that might occur in cases under the three former articles, the king shall propose to the first Storthing in Norway, and at the first Diet in Sweden, a law having for its basis the principle of a perfect equality existing between the two kingdoms.

Article 41. The election of guardians to be at the head of government during the king's minority, shall be made after the same rules and manner formerly prescribed in the second title, Article 5th, concerning the election of an heir to the throne.

Article 42. The individuals who in the cases under the 38th and 39th articles, are at the head of government, shall be, the Norwegians at the Storthing of Norway, and shall take the following oath: "I swear, on my soul and conscience, to govern the kingdom conformably to its constitution and laws;" and the Swedes shall also make a similar oath. If there is not a Storthing or Diet, it shall be deposited in writing in the council, and afterwards repeated at the first of these when they happen to assemble.

Article 43. As soon as the governments have ceased, they shall be restored to the king, and the Storthing.

Article 44. If the Storthing is not convoked, agreeably to what is expressed in the 38th and 39th articles, the supreme tribunal shall consider it as an imperious duty, at the expiration of four weeks, to call a meeting.

Article 45. The charge of the education of the king, in case his father may not have left in writing instructions regarding it, shall be regulated in the manner laid down under the 5th and 41st articles. It is held to be an invariable rule, that the king during his minority shall learn the Norwegian language.

Article 46. If the masculine line of the royal family is extinct, and there has not been elected a successor to the throne, the election of a new dynasty shall be proceeded in, and after the manner prescribed under the 5th article. In the mean time the executive power shall be exercised agreeably to the 41st article.

Title III.

Article 1. Legislative power is exercised by the Storthing, which is constituted of two houses, namely, the Lagthing and Odelsthing.

Article 2. None shall have a right to vote but Norwegians, who have attained twenty·five years, and resided in the country during five years. 1. Those who are exercising, or who have exercised functions. 2. Possess land in the country, which has been let for more than five years. 3. Are burgesses of some city, or possess either in it, or some village, a house, or property of the value of at least three hundred bank crowns in silver.

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Article 3. There shall be drawn up in cities by the magistrates, and in every parish by the public authority and the priest, a register of all the inhabitants who are voters. They shall also note in it without delay, those changes which may successively take place. Before being inscribed in the register, everyone shall take an oath, before the tribunal, of fidelity to the constitution.

4. Right of voting is suspended in the following cases:

1. By the accusation of crime before a tribunal; 2. By not attaining the proper age; 3. By insolvency or bankruptcy, until creditors have obtained their payment in whole, unless it can be proved that the former has arisen from fire, or other unforeseen events.

5. The right of voting is forfeited definitively:

1. By condemnation to the house of correction, slavery, or punishment for defamatory language; 2. By acceptance of the service of a foreign power, without the consent of government. 3. By obtaining the right of citizen in a foreign country. 4. By conviction of having purchased and sold votes, and having voted in more than one electoral assembly.

6. The electoral assemblies and districts are held every three years, and shall finish before the end of the month of December.

7. Electoral assemblies shall be held for the country, at the manor-house of the parish, the church, town-hall, or some other fit place. In the country they shall be directed by the first minister and assistants; and in towns, by magistrates and sheriffs; election shall be made in the order appointed by the registers. Disputes concerning the right of voting shall be decided by the directors of the assembly, from whose judgment an appeal may be made to the Storthing.

8. Before proceeding to the election, the constitution shall be read with a loud voice in the cities, by the first magistrate, and in the country by the curate.

9. In cities, an elector shall be chosen by fifty eligible inhabitants. They shall assemble eight days after, in the place appointed by the magistrate, and choose, either from amongst themselves, or from others who are eligible in the department of their election, a fourth of their number to sit at the Storthing, that is after the manner of three to six in choosing one; seven to ten in electing two; eleven to fourteen in choosing three, and fifteen to eighteen in electing four; which is the greatest number permitted to a city to send. If these consist of less than 150 eligible inhabitants, they shall send the electors to the nearest city, to vote conjointly with the electors of the former, when the two shall only be considered as forming one district.

[Footnote: A law passed 8th February 1816, contains this amendment. Twenty-five electors and more shall not elect more than three representatives, which shall be, ad interim, the greatest number which the bailiwick can send: and, consequently, out of which the number of representatives in the county, which are sixty-one, shall be diminished from fifty to fifty-three.]

10. In each parish in the country the eligible inhabitants shall choose in proportion to their number electors in the following manner; that is to say, a hundred may choose one; two to three hundred, three; and so on in the same proportion.

[Footnote: If future Storthings discover the number of representatives of towns from an increase of population should amount to thirty, the same Storthing shall have right to augment of new the number of representatives of the country, in the manner fixed by the principles of the constitution, which shall be held as a rule in future.]

Electors shall assemble a month after, in the place appointed by the bailiff, and choose, either from amongst themselves or the others of the bailiwick eligible, a tenth of their own number to sit at the Storthing, so that five to fourteen may choose one; fifteen to twenty-four may choose two of them; twenty-five to thirty-four, three; thirty-five and beyond it, four. This is the greatest number.

11. The powers contained in the 9th and 10th articles shall have their proper force and effect until next Storthing. If it is found that the representatives of cities constitute more or less than one-third of those of the kingdom, the Storthing, as a rule for the future, shall have right to change these powers in such a manner that representatives of the cities may join with those of the country, as one to two; and the total number of representatives ought not to be under seventy-five, nor above one hundred.

12. Those eligible, who are in the country, and are prevented from attending by sickness, military service, or other proper reasons, can transmit their votes in writing to those who direct the electoral assemblies, before their termination.

13. No person can be chosen a representative, unless he is thirty years of age, and has resided ten years in the country.

14. The members of council, those employed in their offices, officers of the court, and its pensioners, shall not be chosen as representatives.

15. Individuals chosen to be representatives, are obliged to accept of the election, unless prevented by motives considered lawful by the electors, whose judgment may be submitted to the decision of the Storthing. A person who has appeared more than once as representative at an ordinary Storthing, is not obliged to accept of the election for the next ordinary Storthing. If legal reasons prevent a representative from appearing at the Storthing, the person who after him has most votes shall take his place.

16. As soon as representatives have been elected, they shall receive a writing in the country from the superior magistrate, and in the cities from the magistrate, also from all the electors, as a proof that they have been elected in the manner prescribed by the constitution. The Storthing shall judge of the legality of this authority.

17. All representatives have a right to claim an indemnification in travelling to and returning from the Storthing; as well as subsistence during the period they shall have remained there.

18. During the journey, and return of representatives, as well as the time they may have attended the Storthing, they are exempted from arrest; unless they are seized in some flagrant and public act, and out of the Storthing they shall not be responsible for the opinions they may have declared in it. Everyone is bound to conform himself to the order established in it.

19. Representatives, chosen in the manner above declared, compose the Storthing of the kingdom of Norway.

20. The opening of the Storthing shall be made the first lawful day in the month of February, every three years, in the capital of the kingdom, unless the king, in extraordinary circumstances, by foreign invasion or contagious disease, fixes on some other city of the kingdom. Such change ought then to be early announced.

21. In extraordinary cases, the king has the right of assembling the Storthing, without respect to the ordinary time. The king will then cause to be issued a proclamation, which is to be read in all the principal churches six weeks at least previous to the day fixed for the assembling of members of the Storthing at the place appointed.

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