https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/1jb6nv6/jw_vs_norway_march_2025_from_jan_frode_nilsen/
The verdict is out.
After full understanding and decision by the State Administrator, full confirmation in the appeal case by the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs, three victories in the injunction case, a full victory in the district court, we now faced a loss in the Court of Appeal.
These are the kinds of things you always risk when fighting against someone who never gives up, who has unlimited resources to hire teams of the most expensive lawyers you can find, and lobbying forces that manage to get even human rights organizations like the Norwegian Helsinki Committee to take their side and work against our case.
I have not read the verdict, have not read the reasoning, have not seen what the consequences will be. I expect the State to appeal this to the Supreme Court, which JV would also do if they lost. In that sense, this does not have any consequences right now, beyond a little disappointment.
"Liv Inger Gabrielsen at the Government Attorney represented the state at the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs in court. She comments on the verdict as follows:
– The Court of Appeal shares the ministry's view that the practice of Jehovah's Witnesses towards children who violate the norms of the religious community and risk exclusion can be very unpleasant, humiliating and demanding, among other things because they can lose contact with family members and friends. Nevertheless, the court "doubts" that this is not psychological violence that violates children's rights, she writes to Vårt Land."
Unfortunately, the law has its limitations when you always have to deal with people who have no idea whatsoever about how such groups work. How language works, how control works. How total control over people cannot be transferred to written arguments in a completely different setting.
But no matter what happens, the point of this has always been public education, understanding, community, the desire for reforms, the need to tell our story. Establishing the voices of those who should never be allowed to have a voice.
The fight for the freedom to be able to make one's life choices without facing heavy, life-destroying reprisals from the same organization that received state support in our name.
That fight continues. If the Court of Appeal's judgment stands up to the Supreme Court, §6 of the Religious Communities Act is in practice stone dead and will never be used anywhere. If it cannot be used against JV and their detailed instructions for how defectors are to be punished, it will not be used against anyone else either. Then it must be rewritten.
The last chapter has not been written anyway.
Here is my comment in Vårt Land:
Jan Frode Nilsen is a former member of Jehovah's Witnesses and has testified for the state in court. He is disappointed by the judgment.
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I am critical of the judgment, but cannot go into depth without having read the reasoning. There is something about the sentence "it was not made probable either". If you can't prove Section 6 to a religious community that has written instructions on exclusion, then Section 6 of the Religious Communities Act is completely dead, he says.
He also points out that judges often have a different opinion of the matter than those who have lived in the religious community.
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Law and religion are two worlds that collide, and therefore there can be differences in the understanding of how closed religious communities function, he says.
Nilsen clarifies to Vårt Land that he has not yet read the reasoning of the Court of Appeal.
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I have always expected that this case would go to the Supreme Court. The difference is that they enter as "winners", I had hoped to avoid that.
