Quick Facts
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Karin Maria Bruzelius (born 19 February 1941) is a Swedish-born Norwegian supreme court justice and the current President of the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights.
She served as a justice of the Supreme Court of Norway from 1997 to 2011 and is currently affiliated with the Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law. Before her appointment as supreme court justice, she was Secretary-General (Permanent Secretary) of the Ministry of Transport and Communications from 1989 to 1997, as the first woman to serve as Permanent Secretary in Norway. She has previously also been a Director-General in the Ministry of Justice and a corporate lawyer. She was a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague from 2004 to 2010 and chaired the Petroleum Price Board from 1987 to 2004.
Career
She was born in Lund, Sweden, graduated as cand.jur. from Lund University in 1964 and Master of Law from Columbia Law School in 1969.
She became a principal officer in the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police in 1965, was later promoted to deputy director and became director-general in 1979. From 1983 to 1987 she worked as a lawyer, before becoming 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. She was a Supreme Court Justice from 1997 to 2011. From 2011 she is affiliated with the Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law.
She has chaired the Petroleum Price Board (1987–2004). She was President of the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights 1978–1984 and became President for the second time in 2018. She was also Vice President of the association 1974–1978 and 2014–2016. She is currently a member of the Norwegian Women's Lobby's expert committee.
On 5 February 2008, the Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs of the Norwegian Parliament recommended that a commission be named to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute for impeachment three of the Norwegian Supreme Court Justices who presided over the cases of Fritz Moen, a victim of miscarriage of justice. The three were Bruzelius, Magnus Matningsdal and Eilert Stang Lund. However, when the case was treated by the Standing Committee on Justice three months later, it was closed.
