Sigurd Juell Lorentzen (5 August 1916 – 25 January 1979) was a Norwegian judge and civil servant. He was born in

Sunndal Municipality is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in the Nordmøre Districts of Norway, region located in the northeast part of Møre og Romsdal counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative center of the municipality is the village o ...

, and was a brother of professor Gustav Fredrik Lorentzen. He married judge Lelia Marie Loe in 1957. They resided in Bærum Municipality. He enrolled as a student in 1934, graduated with the cand.jur. degree in 1938, and worked as a secretary in ''Trustkontrollkontoret'' from 1939 to 1940 and in the Norwegian Price Directorate from 1940 to 1945. After a brief time in the

Ministry of Finance A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position . A ministry of finance's portfoli ...

in 1945, to which he was summoned by Wilhelm Thagaard,Lie, 1995: p. 198 he returned to the Price Directorate and remained here until 1949. He was a deputy under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Finance from 1951 to 1960, permanent under-secretary of state in the

Ministry of Transport A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government a ...

from 1960 to 1972 and a Supreme Court Justice from 1972 to 1979. When hired as deputy under-secretary in 1951, Lorentzen edged out applicants who were generally believed to be better qualified, especially Einar Grøstad. This was a personal decision by

Minister of Finance A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position . A ministry of finance's portfolio ...

Trygve Bratteli. Lorentzen was the youngest of the applicants, and the second youngest permanent under-secretary in the Ministry at the time. He was also known to be, as a person, quite similar to Trygve Bratteli. He became quite strong; historian Einar Lie has noted that "in reality", the permanent under-secretary of state Friedrich Georg Nissen did not function "as a real superior to Lorentzen". In 1957, both Grøstad and Lorentzen applied to become the successor of Nissen as permanent under-secretary, the highest position in the Ministry. However, this time Trygve Bratteli chose economist Eivind Erichsen; Grøstad and Lorentzen were both jurists. Einar Lie has called this "likely ../nowiki> the only defeat in Lorentzen's own career". Soon, Lorentzen developed a reserved relation to Erichsen as well as Per Kleppe—principally, though, since the latter two were economists and Lorentzen was a jurist. Einar Lie wrote that when Trygve Bratteli brought Lorentzen to the Ministry of Transport, he "solved" a problem. It also paved the way for up-and-coming economist

Hermod Skånland Hermod Skånland (15 June 1925 – 16 April 2011) was a Norway, Norwegian economist and civil servant, who served as the Norges Bank#List of Central Bank Governors, Governor of the Norges Bank, Central Bank of Norway from 1985 to 1993. Biography ...

.Lie, 1995: p. 350 Lorentzen was also the chairman of the Norwegian Association of Lawyers from 1966 to 1971 and the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lorentzen, Sigurd 1916 births 1979 deaths Norwegian civil servants Supreme Court of Norway justices People from Sunndal