Covid-19 and Norwegian Civil Justice

Abstract

Norwegian courts have been digitised at an unprecedented pace during the Covid-19 pandemic. Because case management hearings were already conducted remotely and expert witnesses were often examined remotely, the transition to fully remote hearings has been fairly smooth in Norway, as will be explained in Section 2. However, the implementation of new technology has entailed some difficulties, in particular, regarding the application of the rules on remote hearings. These challenges will be discussed in Sections 3 and 4. Section 5 discusses whether paperless courts and remote hearings are overly modest advancements considering the potential that lies in digitisation.