Karin Maria Bruzelius (born 19 February 1941) is a Swedish-born Norwegian supreme court justice and former president of the

Norwegian Association for Women's Rights The Norwegian Association for Women's Rights (; NKF) is Norway's oldest and preeminent women's rights, women's and girls' rights organization that works "to promote gender equality and all women's and girls' human rights through political reform, ...

. In 1989, she became the first woman to be appointed

Permanent Secretary A permanent secretary is the most senior Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servant of a department or Ministry (government department), ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day activities. Permanent secretaries are ...

of a government ministry, heading the Ministry of Transport and Communications until 1997. She was appointed supreme court justice on the

Supreme Court of Norway The Supreme Court of Norway ( Norwegian Bokmål: ; Norwegian Nynorsk: ; lit. 'Highest Court') is the highest court in the Norwegian judiciary. It was established in 1815 on the basis of section 88 in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway, ...

in 1997, retiring in 2011. She has previously also been a director-general in the

Ministry of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

and a corporate lawyer. She was a member of the

Permanent Court of Arbitration The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered at the Peace Palace, in The Hague, Netherlands. Unlike a judicial court in the traditional sense, the PCA provides administrative support in international ...

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

from 2004 to 2010, and chaired the Petroleum Price Board from 1987 to 2004. She served as president of the

from 1978 to 1984, and from 2018 to 2020. She has been affiliated with the Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law at the

University of Oslo Faculty of Law The Faculty of Law () of the University of Oslo is Norway's oldest law faculty, established in 1811 as one of the four original faculties of The Royal Frederick University (renamed the University of Oslo in 1939). Alongside the law facult ...

since 2011.

Background

She was born in

Lund Lund (, ;"Lund"
(US) and ) is a city in the provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, southern Swed ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, as the daughter of the judge and legal scholar Anders Bruzelius. She graduated as jur.kand. (JD) from

Lund University Lund University () is a Public university, public research university in Sweden and one of Northern Europe's oldest universities. The university is located in the city of Lund in the Swedish province of Scania. The university was officially foun ...

in 1964, and Master of Law from

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (CLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Columbia University, a Private university, private Ivy League university in New York City. The school was founded in 1858 as the Columbia College Law School. The un ...

in 1969. When she was a law student at Lund University,

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; Bader; March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until Death and state funeral of Ruth Bader ...

stayed at the university to co-author the book ''Civil Procedure in Sweden'' with her father, and Ginsburg became a close friend of the family. Karin Bruzelius later said that "by getting close to my family, Ruth realized that one could live in a completely different way, that women could have a different lifestyle and legal position than what they had in the United States"; Bruzelius' father and Ginsburg jointly received honorary doctorates at Lund in 1969.

Legal career

Following her graduation in 1964, she briefly worked as an assistant judge in

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

. Later that year, she moved to Norway as a result of her marriage to Norwegian lawyer and peace activist Fredrik Heffermehl. Bruzelius became a Norwegian citizen in 1972, and was naturalized through an act of parliament in 1974, a rare procedure that was necessary for appointment of a foreign-born person to higher office in the civil service. She worked in the

Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police The Royal Ministry of Justice and Public Security () is a Norwegian government ministry that oversees justice, the police, and domestic intelligence. The main purpose of the ministry is to provide for the maintenance and development of the basic ...

from 1965 to 1982, and became a principal officer in the ministry's legal affairs department in 1974, an assistant director-general in the department in 1978, and a director-general and head of the ministry's polar department in 1979. Her work in the Ministry of Justice focused on transport legislation and

private international law Conflict of laws (also called private international law) is the set of rules or laws a jurisdiction applies to a case, transaction, or other occurrence that has connections to more than one jurisdiction."Conflict of Laws", ''Black's Law Dictio ...

as well as international law issues related to

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...

and the

Norwegian continental shelf The Norwegian continental shelf () (abbreviated as NCS) is the continental shelf over which Norway exercises sovereign rights as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The area of the shelf is four times the area of Norw ...

where Norway was developing its petroleum industry at the time. She was only the second woman to become a director-general in a government ministry, and the first in the Ministry of Justice. From 1982 to 1987, she worked as a corporate lawyer for the Nordic Association of Marine Insurers, before returning to central government as a director-general in the Ministry of Transport and Communications. She was promoted to secretary-general (permanent under-secretary of State), the chief civil servant of the ministry, in 1989 as the first woman to hold such a position in Norway. In 1997, she was appointed by the King-in-Council as Cupreme Court Justice on the

, and served until 2011. She was also a member of the

at The Hague from 2004 to 2010. Since 2011, she has been affiliated with the Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law. She has chaired the Petroleum Price Board (1987–2004), responsible for setting norm prices for

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...

produced on the

. She chairs the Norwegian Financial Services Complaints Board. She was president of the

1978–1984, and 2018–2020; she was also Vice President of the association 1974–1978, and 2014–2016, and a board member for 18 years between 1974, and 2020. She was a board member of the

International Alliance of Women The International Alliance of Women (IAW; , AIF) is an international non-governmental organization that works to promote women's rights and gender equality. It was historically the main international organization that campaigned for women's suff ...

1979–1985. Since 2016, she has been a member of the

Norwegian Women's Lobby The Norwegian Women's Lobby (NWL; ) is a feminist policy and advocacy organization in Norway and works for "the human rights of girls and women in all their diversity, to eliminate all forms of discrimination against all girls and women and to pro ...

's expert committee. On 5 February 2008, the Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs of the

Norwegian Parliament The Storting ( ; ) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years based on party-list proportional represe ...

recommended that a commission be named to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute for

impeachment Impeachment is a process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements. In Eur ...

three of the Norwegian Supreme Court Justices who presided over the cases of

Fritz Moen Fritz Yngvar Moen (17 December 1941 – 28 March 2005) was a Norwegian man wrongfully convicted of two distinct murders, serving a total of 18 years in prison. After the convictions were quashed, an official inquiry was instigated to establi ...

, a victim of

miscarriage of justice A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent ...

. The three were Bruzelius, Magnus Matningsdal and

Eilert Stang Lund Eilert Stang Lund (born 15 July 1939) is a Norwegian judge. He graduated as cand.jur. from the University of Oslo in 1965 and as Master of Law from Harvard University in 1973. He then worked as a consultant in the Ministry of Justice and the Poli ...

. However, when the case was treated by the Standing Committee on Justice three months later, it was closed.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bruzelius, Karin Maria 1941 births 20th-century Norwegian politicians 20th-century Norwegian women politicians Columbia Law School alumni Living people Lund University alumni Norwegian Association for Women's Rights people Norwegian civil servants Norwegian women judges Norwegian women's rights activists Supreme Court of Norway justices Swedish emigrants to Norway People from Lund