Norway's Supreme Court Rules the State's Deregistration of Jehovah's Witnesses Unlawful

On 29 April 2026, the Supreme Court of Norway, sitting in Oslo, ruled that the Oslo and Viken county governor's December 2022 deregistration of Jehovah's Witnesses' national legal entity, and the accompanying denial of the state grants available to more than seven hundred registered religious communities in Norway, violated Norwegian and international law. The county governor had cited disagreement with the faith's practice of removing unrepentant members from the congregation, a practice long recognized as lawful by courts elsewhere. A district court upheld the deregistration in March 2024, a court of appeal overturned that ruling in March 2025, and the Supreme Court's decision affirmed the appeal court, finding the government had not shown the practice caused minors psychological harm meeting the threshold the law requires, and that the shunning of departing adult members, resting on documented doctrine and involving no direct coercion, did not amount to impermissible pressure under the Religious Communities Act or the European Convention on Human Rights, with two justices dissenting on that point. The ruling is final and cannot be appealed, and restores the roughly twelve thousand member Norwegian community's registration and eligibility for state funding.