Crown Prince Haakon of Norway handed over the Protection of the Law Prize to the Lovdata Foundation

Norges Juristforbund, the Norwegian Association of Lawyers, celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2016. It is also 10 years since the association's Protection of the Law Prize (Rettssikkerhetsprisen) was awarded for the first time. This is why Crown Prince Haakon was invited to attend the presentation ceremony and the lecture in connection with the Protection of the law conference at the Grand Hotel in downtown Oslo today.

This year the prize was awarded to the foundation I work for, Lovdata.

As far as I can tell there was no news coverage of the event, but you can find photos of the presentation through the following Twitter links:

• Jon Wessel-Aas, 12.02 P.M. 27 Sep 2016 
• Advokatbladet, 1.14 P.M. 27 Sep 2016

On the last photo you can see from the left to the right board chairperson of the Lovdata Foundation, Herman Bruserud, Lovdata director Odd Storm-Paulsen, former director and founder Trygve Harvold (who received the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, 1st class, in 2000, for his work for Lovdata),  Protection of the Law prize  Prize committee member Siv Hallgren and committee member Sven Ole Fagernæs and Crown Prince Haakon.

The Protection of the Law Prize is awarded one or several persons, an institution or an organisation which during the previous year or for some time has distinguished itself in its work by

• Strengthening the protection of the law and equality before the law within its field of work,
• Working for the rule of law principles, freedom of expression, equality, human rights and safety from trespass to person
• Contributing to increased understanding of and insight into the body of laws and rules
• Contributing to more efficient proceedings and more secure decision making through the use of (legal) competence

(The Norwegian word rettssikkerhet is according to my copy of Åge Lind's Norwegian-English Legal dictionary understood as «law and order», «protection of the law» or «protection accorded by the law», but also «due process protection», as in for instance «protecting an individual against unlawful acts on the part of the state itself».)

Updated on Wednesday 28 September 2016 at 13.40 (photo identification corrected).