Lovdata, stiftelsen Lovdata
Maintains the text in forceNorway's legal information service, and the body that physically produces Norsk Lovtidend, the official gazette. Lovdata is not a ministry: it is a private foundation, established on 1 July 1981 by the Ministry of Justice and the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo, and its own English page says so. Forskrift 21. juni 1994 nr. 644, made under section 4 of the Norsk Lovtidend Act, authorises the Ministry to contract with stiftelsen Lovdata for the use of Lovdata's statute and regulation databases, and gives the State a right to take those databases over if the foundation is wound up - so the databases are the foundation's, held under an arrangement with the State. The 1992 circular on publication in Norsk Lovtidend instructs ministries to send material for publication to Norsk Lovtidend, c/o Lovdata. Four kinds of address matter and they are different documents. /dokument/NL/lov/<date>-<nr> and /dokument/SF/forskrift/<date>-<nr> are Lovdata's consolidated texts of Acts and central regulations; appending /* to either serves the whole instrument, and without it the address returns only a table of contents and an editorial blurb. /dokument/<...>/KAPITTEL_n serves one chapter. /LTI/lov/<date>-<nr> is the instrument as published in Norsk Lovtidend, which is the official text. /dokument/NLE/ and /dokument/SFE/ are unofficial English translations. The free-text search at /sok?q= is readable by the extraction service and is the practical way to find an instrument whose number is unknown; /referanse/hjemmel?dokID=NL/lov/<date>-<nr> lists every regulation made under a given Act. The treaty register at /traktat/<date>-<nr>, which Lovdata administers for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, carries Norwegian texts of treaties with metadata naming the authentic language.
Maintains the current text of the law as amended, so you can read a provision as it stands today rather than reconstructing it from amendments.
lovdata.noCannot be cited for
**The consolidated texts are not the official text.** Norsk Lovtidend is what lov 19. juni 1969 nr. 53 § 1 requires to be published for public account, and section 3 of that Act ties an Act's commencement to the date of the issue of Norsk Lovtidend that announced it. A consolidation under /dokument/NL/ or /dokument/SF/ is the foundation's editorial product: reliable, universally used, and not the enacted words. Where it matters, the as-promulgated text is at the /LTI/ address and should be read instead. **No consolidation carries a sweep date.** The metadata block prints Sist endret with the last amending Act folded in, and a Rettet line recording editorial corrections, and neither is a statement that the text was checked as at a day - so no consolidatedAsOf can honestly be taken from a Lovdata page. **The amendment notes are Lovdata's, not the legislature's**: the small numbered blocks under each section are the foundation's apparatus and must not be quoted as enacted text, though they are the only readable record of what a repealed section used to say. **The consolidation prints provisions not yet in force beside those in force**, marked only by a note saying Endres ved forskrift ... i kraft <date>; section 10-1 of the Driving Licence Regulation carries one for 1 January 2027. **The English translations at /dokument/NLE/ and /dokument/SFE/ are not the instrument and must never be quoted as one**: Lovdata's own page states that the translations are not official, that they are provided for information purposes only, and that in the event of any inconsistency the Norwegian version shall prevail; the translations are produced by ministries rather than by Lovdata. **The bare /dokument/NL/lov/<date>-<nr> address is not the law**: it serves a table of contents and a Kort om loven blurb written by Lovdata, and a reading taken from it contains no section text at all - the Immigration Act at that address is 38,290 characters of navigation, against 431,640 at the same address with /* appended. **It cannot be cited for anything an agency does.** The skilled-worker quota, what counts as pay for a work permit, what counts as sufficient means, the Svalbard tax rates and the student tuition levels are all left by the instruments to a directorate, a ministry or the Storting, and none of those decisions is published here.
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Facts resting on this publisher · 27
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