Norway
Prosecution in Norway
The Prosecution Authority (Påtalemyndigheten) — independent of ministerial instruction, headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, with its lowest tier embedded inside the police.
Facts on this page were checked against their sources on .
Prosecution in Norway is conducted by the Prosecution Authority (Påtalemyndigheten), headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions (Riksadvokaten). It has three levels: the Director of Public Prosecutions at the top, the regional Public Prosecutors (statsadvokatene), and — at the lowest level — the prosecution authority embedded within the police, where police lawyers hold prosecutorial powers. The statutory framework is the Criminal Procedure Act (straffeprosessloven).
The same idea, explained generally
- What does a prosecutor do?
A prosecutor decides whether a criminal case should be brought, on what charges, and presents it in court. This guide explains the tests applied, the duties owed, and how the role differs between systems.
- Why do justice systems need oversight?
Justice institutions hold coercive powers, often operate out of public view, and make decisions that are hard to reverse. This guide explains the oversight mechanisms built to detect and correct errors, and their limits.
Sources
Sources
The Prosecution Authority in Norway (official overview)
Government of Norway (Ministry of Justice and Public Security file store, regjeringen.no) · Government publication · link verified 2026-07-26
An official government-hosted overview of the Norwegian prosecution, fetched as a PDF; the independence and structure principles were independently corroborated in the verification pass (Norwegian Bar Association and other sources). Supports the three-level structure — the Director of Public Prosecutions (Riksadvokaten), the regional Public Prosecutors (statsadvokatene), and the prosecution authority embedded inside the police (police lawyers holding prosecutorial powers) — and the independence principle: the prosecuting authority makes its own independent decisions, and only the King in Council (not the Minister of Justice) may give it general instructions; the DPP is appointed by the King in Council and directs both the prosecutors and the police districts. NOTE: this is a pre-2019 document that states the outdated figure of 27 police districts; the district count is now 12 (see no-stortinget-reform) and only the independence/structure principles are relied on from it.