KOMMISJONEN FOR GJENOPPTAKELSE AV STRAFFESAKER THE NORWEGIAN CRIMINAL CASES REVIEW COMMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 2019 Contents The Chair's report ......................................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction to the activities and main figures ............................................................................................ 5 The organisation ........................................................................................................................................... 7 Presentation of the Commission's members as at 31 December 2019 ....................................................... 7 Presentation of the Commission's secretariat as at 31 December 2019 ..................................................... 9 The procedure in a review case .................................................................................................................. 10 – without an investigation ........................................................................................................................... 10 The procedure in a review case ................................................................................................................... 11 – with an investigation ................................................................................................................................. 11 The year's activities and results.................................................................................................................. 12 Relevant decisions by the Commission in 2019 ......................................................................................... 17 The Commission's other activities .............................................................................................................. 26 Management and control of the activities ................................................................................................. 30 Assessment of the outlook ......................................................................................................................... 31 Annual accounts ......................................................................................................................................... 32 Accounting principles ................................................................................................................................. 33 Appropriation reporting statement 31.12.2019 ......................................................................................... 34 Notes to the appropriation reporting statement ....................................................................................... 35 General ledger accounts reporting statement 31.12.2019 ........................................................................ 37 Notes to the general ledger accounts reporting statement....................................................................... 38 2 ANNUAL REPORT 2019 The Chair's report The Norwegian Criminal Cases Review Commission (the The Commission held meetings on 11 days and one Commission) was established in January 2004. The telephone meeting in 2019. The Commission reopened objective was to create increased confidence in the 11 cases (9%), while 11 applications were disallowed. treatment of convicted persons' applications to have their Abbreviated versions of the reopened cases are included criminal cases reopened by removing such decisions in this annual report. The Commission or Chair/Vice from the sphere of the courts that had originally ruled on Chair rejected 96 applications. The average number of these cases. The reason for this was several reopened cases for all the years in which the controversial cases in the 1980s and 1990s. The Commission has existed is the same as before, around Commission was to provide guidance to convicted 15%. persons and investigate and decide on these cases. Through this reform, the prosecuting authority was also Since 2004, the reason for reopening in more than 50% assigned a less prominent role. of the cases reopened was that, following a legally enforceable conviction, the convicted person was proven During the Commission's first year, 232 applications to not to have been responsible for his/her acts at the time reopen cases were received. Since then, the of the offence so that he/she should not have been Commission has received 150-170 applications each punished. In many cases, it has been revealed that the year. From the start in 2004 until the year-end 2019, the convicted person had a mild intellectual disability so that Commission has reviewed 2,063 cases on their merits. a less severe penalty should have been considered. Of the 11 reopened cases, five were reopened on these The Commission is an important part of the criminal grounds. justice system and helps to create a state based on the rule of law. Our goal is for our proceedings to be We have to a larger extent than in previous years noticed objective, thorough and efficient. They are to ensure that more attention is now being paid to the Commission. substantively correct decisions within a reasonable time. This is probably due to a number of articles, books, TV It is important to take an open and critical approach to series and podcasts with a "true crime" content. We want the cases. Experienced and interested employees in the in so far as possible to accede to requests for interviews Commission's secretariat prepare cases for the and to provide information on the Commission's work to Commission. journalists and programme makers. However, we are primarily concerned about doing thorough work on our The Commission is a body with a wide range of decisions. The Commission's treatment of extensive or expertise. Two new Commission members were complicated cases often stretches over several appointed in 2019 – Elin Ramleth Østli, a state- meetings, and we cannot allow ourselves to be governed authorised public accountant, was appointed a member, by deadlines or demands by the parties to the case. and psychology specialist Timothy John Brennan was appointed an alternate member. We employed one new At the year-end, there was also a great focus on the secretariat employee, and hired two lawyers for a total of Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service cases, perhaps six months. The Commission's members and employees especially because there may be more than 75 wrongful are presented later on in this annual report. convictions. We prepared for examining these cases in 2020 by planning to hold extra Commission meetings, For the 2019 budget year, the Commission had NOK hiring extra employees for a period, and starting using a 18,237,000 at its disposal and spent NOK 17,866,890. meeting room as an open-plan office. I have also, with Most of this was spent on fixed expenses such as ICT few exceptions, agreed to interviews, meetings and talks costs, rent, secretariat employee salaries and that can help to provide information on the Commission's remuneration to the Commission's members. work on these cases. Should there prove to be more than the aforementioned number of convictions, the In 2019, the Commission received 153 applications to Commission will have to spend more time and money reopen cases, compared to 164 in 2018. A total of 131 and do more work in 2020 than estimated. cases were concluded, compared to 133 in 2018. The Commission has thus not achieved its goal that the number of decisions is to be no fewer than the number of applications received. ÅRSRAPPORT 2019 3 One of the main priorities in the draft 2019 budget for the Ministry of Justice and Public Security was "a more efficient criminal justice chain". In 2019, our work of improving the Commission's efficiency and digitalisation continued, and we made preparations for choosing suppliers for a new procedural and archive system. This has taken up a lot of our time, but we now see that good preparations will take us a long way towards our goal of contributing to a more efficient criminal justice chain in 2020. Oslo, 13 February 2020 [Signature] Siv Hallgren Chair 4 ANNUAL REPORT 2019 Introduction to the activities and main figures The Norwegian Criminal Cases which enables electronic communication between Review Commission's place in the the police, prosecuting authority, courts and criminal justice chain correctional services, has now been established. Several key enterprises will be linked to Justishub. The figure below is intended to be a simplified The Commission is also working on this to achieve illustration of the Commission's place in the the secure, efficient transfer of criminal case criminal justice chain. The Electronic Interaction documents to and from the Commission. The between Players in the Criminal Justice Chain Commission's digitalisation project is described in (ESAS) project is intended to contribute to a more further detail below in the section headed "The efficient and better quality criminal justice chain. A Commission's other activities". technical platform called Justishub (Justice Hub), Custody - Police, the Correctional Services Restoration/ compensation The Norwegian Criminal Injuries compensation The Norwegian Civil Affairs Authority Investigation Court hearing Police Prosecution Reopening Prosecuting Courts The Norwegian Prosecuting authority Prosecuting Criminal Cases authority authority Review Commission Execution of Mediation sentence by mediation boards Correctional Mediation Service Mediation Service Services Mediation