Norway | Aage Thor Falkanger re-elected as Ombudsman

Norwegian Parliamentary Ombudsman Aage Thor Falkanger was re-elected for another term of four years by the Parliament in November 2017. 

Mr Falkanger was born in 1965 in Oslo. He finished his law degree in 1991, and went on to work as an assistant lawyer with the Attorney General of Civil Affairs. From 1992, he was an assistant judge in Nord-Troms District Court. In 1999, he was awarded the doctoral degree in jurisprudence after being a research fellow at the Faculty of Law at the University of Tromsø since 1995

Falkanger served as a judge in Hålogaland Court of Appeal from 1999 to 2007, and was a professor at the University of Tromsø from 2007 to 2010. He was also an acting Supreme Court Judge in the periods April–July 2007 and February–July 2009. In addition to this, he was a fellow visitor at Cambridge University in 2007–2008. Falkanger has been a Supreme Court Justice at the Supreme Court of Norway since 2010, and is currently on leave of absence from this position while he is Parliamentary Ombudsman.

Aage Thor Falkanger is the fifth Parliamentary Ombudsman since Supreme Court Judge Andreas Schei was appointed as the first Parliamentary Ombudsman in December 1962. The Ombudsman is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament to safeguard the rights of individual citizens in their dealings with the public administration.

Source: Office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Norway