Stretching the Rule of Law: How the Norwegian resistance movement influenced the provisional treason decrees of the exile government, 1944-1945

Abstract

This article examines the role of the Norwegian resistance movement ‘Hjemmefronten’ (the Home Front, HF) as a political interest group during the exile government’s formulation of provisional laws meant for the postwar reckoning with Norwegian collaborators and foreign war criminals. The article argues that the resistance through its judicial committee in Oslo had a decisive impact on the final versions of three decrees that, though constitutionally contested, formed most of the legal basis for the judicial settlement after 1945. It is shown how the intervention of the HF in the legislative process during 1944 and 1945 exacerbated the constitutional difficulties associated with the penal decrees passed in London. Compared to other Western European countries occupied by Nazi Germany the influence of the resistance over the wording of treason laws almost certainly is unique.