To you, and through you to the Storthing and the entire population of Norway, I address the following words, in answer to the address and decision both of the Norwegian Cabinet and the Storthing:
The oath that the King of Norway takes according to the Constitution § 9 on his accession to the throne, »that he will rule the Kingdom of Norway in accordance with its constitution and law», makes it a kingly duty for Me not to pay any attention to the statement of the Norwegian Cabinet in reference to my decree on May 27th ult., in which I declared, that, for the present, I did not find it suitable to sanction the Storthing’s proposal respecting the establishment of a separate Norwegian Consular Service. The Cabinet thereby declared that this decree, being in conflict with the unanimous recommendation of the Norwegian Cabinet would imply a depreciation of a right in accordance with the Norwegian fundamental law, independently to settle the matter in question, and also implied a violation of Norway’s freedom, independence and Sovereignty, and at the same time the Cabinet declared that no member of the Ministry then sitting would be willing to countersign My Decree, and thereby, according to the opinion of the Cabinet, give it legislative validity.
The Norwegian King’s prerogative, when he thinks the welfare of the kingdom demands it, to refuse His sanction to a proposal presented in due form by the Storthing is unconditional. From this rule, there is no exception even though the Storthing were to present the same resolution ever so many times in precisely the same terms. Meanwhile according to the fundamental law (Constitution § 79) the decision of the Storthing becomes the law of Norway without the sanction of the King, but in order to accomplish this, are required unaltered resolutions from three Storthings drawn up after three consecutive elections, which resolution must be laid before the King, »with an appeal, that His Majesty will not refuse to sanction the resolution, which the Storthing after the most careful considerations, believes to be advantageous. In the case now in hand, there was no question of any such resolution from the Storthing, and therefore the regulation in the fundamental law § 78: could be suitably applied: »If the King sanctions the resolution, He signs it with His superscription, on which it becomes the law. If He does not sanction it, He returns it to the Odelsthing (Lower House) with the declaration that for the present He finds it unsuitable to sanction.» And the paragraph continues: »The resolution may not again on that occasion be laid before the King by the members of the Storthing then assembled.» By this last mentioned prescription the Constitution has evidently meant to protect the Norwegian King’s liberty in the exercise of the legislative powers which are his indisputable right.
My resolve, not to sanction a law providing for a separate Norwegian Consular Service, can consequently not be considered to imply any transgression whatever of the legislative power, which according to the fundamental law is the King’s right, not even, if the matter in question happened to be an affair which concerned Norway alone. But on the grounds of the valid Union agreement between Norway and Sweden, it was not only My right, but also My duty as King of Norway to refuse My sanction, for the dissolution of the existing identical Consular Office could only be effected through Norway’s consent to free and friendly negotiations concerning agreements for altering the Union on the basis of full equality between the United Kingdoms, to which not only the Powers Royal, but also the Diet of Sweden had unanimously themselves agreed. That such a respect to the demands of the existing Union should imply an attack on Norway’s independence and sovereignty, is so much the more unfounded, as the fundamental law explicitly connects Norway’s independence with its Union with Sweden. Norway’s King must ever hold in sight the 1:st paragraph of its Constitution:
»The Kingdom of Norway is a free, self-dependant, integral and independent Kingdom, united with Sweden under one King.»
The statement made by the Council that My resolve, not to sanction the Consular law, proposed by the Storthing, would have no legal validity, as none of the members of the Cabinet had found themselves able to countersign the Royal Decree supplies a supposition which I must declare is in conflict with fundamental law. The question of the significance of contrasignature according to Norwegian State law, is not a new question brought up to day, but is older than the present Norwegian Constitution. It was already solved at the Convention of Eidsvold. A proposal was then made that Countersignature was requisite in order that the King’s commands should become valid, but was opposed on the grounds that it was against the general principles of the Constitution for the division of supreme power. The same standpoint was taken in the fundamental law of the 4th November. This opinion was also expressed by the Constitutional Committee without contradiction on two occasions, 1824 and 1839, when the Storthing had even opposed a proposal concerning another matter. The change, which § 32 in the Constitution has since undergone, gives increased support to the opinion that the Prime Minister’s Countersignature is intended for nothing else than a witness that the King has made a Decree of certain import.
And that § 31 is unconditional in its prescription of the duty of the authorised countersignature of the Prime Minister is a conception that is acceded to by those writers on State law who have framed the Constitution. When the Cabinet quoted an opinion of the Norwegian government in 1847 when the proposal for a new Act of Union was under consideration, the Cabinet has overlooked, firstly, that this opinion, in a manner that applies to Swedish government regulations § 38, was intended only to refer to orders issued but not the Decree of the King included in the protocol, secondly that the Norwegian Government could not prove that the Norwegian Constitution really provided any law respecting the right to refuse countersignature. The Constitution on the contrary emphatically prescribes in § 30: »But to the King it is reserved the right to form his decision according to His own judgment», and in § 31: »All Commands issued by the King himself (Military Orders excepted) shall be countersigned by the Prime Minister (before 1873 the Norwegian Prime Minister).
That under these circumstances I feel Myself entitled to demand respect for a Decree formed by the King of Norway in a Constitutional manner, is a matter for which no one can blame me. The powers which the Constitution grants the King, in order to further the good of the country to the best of his convictions, are not greater than that they ought to be preserved to the supreme power, so that no constitutional practices in conflict with the principles of the fundamental law are introduced, which, according to the explicit prescriptions in § 112 may not be done, even by an alteration of the fundamental law.
One of the chief principles of the Constitution — the most important of all, in point of fact — is that Norway shall be a Constitutional Monarchy. It is incompatible with this, that the King should sink to be a helpless tool in the hands of His Ministers. If, meanwhile, the members of the Council should have the power, by refusing countersignature, to hinder every future Royal Decree, the Norwegian King would be deprived of participating in the government. This position would be as lowering to the Monarch as injurious to Norway herself.
To the circumstances that can thus be adduced against the validity, according to fundamental law, of the Prime Minister’s refusal of Countersignature, and against the efficacy of the dogma that the King’s Decree in order to be valid, must bear the responsibility of some member of the Cabinet, can be added, in questions touching the Union situation, two more reasons, which have their foundation in the fact that the King of Norway is also King of the Union.