Zurich, 06 May 2026
Baudenbacher Law AG has important news to share regarding our Norwegian clients relating to the NAV-scandal case:
The European Court of Human Rights has formally received the correspondence that Baudenbacher Law AG filed on behalf of two NAV scandal victims, and will deal with the case as soon as practicable. After Norwegian courts denied the victims compensation for non-pecuniary damage for human rights violations in three consecutive rulings — the Supreme Court’s Appeals Committee dismissing the final appeal without reasons. The proceedings concern alleged violations of Articles 3, 6, 7, 8, 13 and Protocol 1, Article 1 of the ECHR.
A third client passed away on 16 January 2025 without ever receiving justice from the Norwegian State. She had spent 61 days innocently in prison for alleged benefit fraud and was subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment.
New Political and Legal Developments in Norway
In addition to this, the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) recently invoked Section 75(f) of the Constitution, a power last exercised in 1959, to compel the Government to release the classified 2014 Report on the export of welfare benefits. Baudenbacher Law only received a heavily redacted version of this document in the domestic proceedings. The now fully released version explicitly states that making welfare benefits conditional on the recipient’s physical presence on Norwegian soil was highly problematic and very likely in breach of EEA law.
These developments come after Professor Finn Arnesen, who led the Government’s own official inquiry, publicly stated that the State Attorney’s use of his report to defeat victims’ compensation claims was “wrong.” His committee was never mandated to examine individual liability.
Professor Tarjei Bekkedal of the University of Oslo has described the NAV social security scandal as the largest miscarriage of justice in Norway since the Second World War.
The ECtHR is now in a position to assess not only the treatment of the individual applicants, but also Norway’s systemic failure to provide effective remedies and the recent developments these last months. The Norwegian State’s strategy of exhausting victims through domestic proceedings now faces scrutiny at the highest European level.
The Norwegian national broadcaster (NRK) reports on our ECtHR complaint here:
https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/nav-skandalen-1.14759909
