Norway - April 2026

On 29 April, the Supreme Court ruled that the government’s decision in 2021 to deregister and deny state funding to Jehovah’s Witnesses was invalid. Jehovah’s Witnesses had previously been a registered religious community since 1985. The authorities had justified the measures by arguing that the religious community’s practice of social shunning of former members violates children’s rights and its members’ right to free withdrawal. The Court found that the threshold for restricting religious communities had not been met and that the state had failed to provide sufficient evidence of rights violations. The group’s registration as a religious community will therefore be reinstated, as well as the entitlement to public funding. The ruling reinforces a high threshold for the religious community’s right to autonomy and collective religious practice protected by the European Convention of Human Rights. 

Sources: NRK, Aftenposten, NHRI, Lovdata, UPR-Info