Frede Castberg (1893-1977) : A counterpoint in modern Nordic legal culture

Summary, in English

Frede Castberg belonged to the post-World War II Norwegian establishment. His father, Johan Castberg, was a parliamentarian and a member of the Norwegian political aristocracy. Frede Castberg was professor of constitutional law at Oslo University from 1928 to 1963. In a period when antimetaphysic and realistic legal thought dominated Scandinavian legal culture, Castberg represented a more natural law-based concept of the law and of human rights. He searched for an ethical anchoring of the law, for which the Norwegian people had struggled throughout World War II. After the war, he sympathized with the European renaissance in natural law and human rights. In 1953, when a new church law went into effect in Norway, Castberg was elected vice-chancellor of the University of Oslo. Asked to write an opinion in a governmental lawsuit against a Norwegian bishop, he published his investigation into the case. The subsequent inflamed and polemical conflict with Bishop Eivind Berggrav demonstrated the gap between “the church and the university about the position of the church in the state religion.” It also demonstrated Castberg’s constitutional views regarding church law. In the postwar era, he achieved the status of a cultural celebrity.

• Författare: Kjell Modéer
• Avdelning/ar: Juridiska institutionen; Rättshistoria
• Publiceringsår: 2020
• Språk: Engelska
• Sidor: 345-356
• Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie: Law and The Christian Tradition in Scandinavia : The Writings of Great Nordic Jurists
• Länkar: http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003015253-27
• Dokumenttyp: Del av eller Kapitel i bok
• Förlag: Taylor & Francis
• Ämne: Law and Society
• Aktiv: Published
• Forskningsgrupp: Legal history
• ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt: ISBN: 9781000201536