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COVID-19 RULES

What happens if you refuse to pay a fine for breaking the Covid rules in Norway

If you are caught breaking the Covid-19 rules in Norway, then you most likely have to pay a fine, but what happens if you refuse? 

Published: 7 July 2021 16:32 CEST
What happens if you refuse to pay a fine for breaking the Covid rules in Norway
What happens if you refuse to pay the fine. Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels

Two women have fines increased after refusing to pay

On Wednesday, two women who refused to pay fines issued to them by the police after they were caught having a party in Bergen have had their fines increased by the district court in the city. 

The two women aged 28 and 34, who have not been named, refused to pay the original fines because they said the rules at the time were unclear. 

Their fines have been increased to 6,000 kroner for one woman who was simply in attendance and 12,000 kroner for the woman responsible for organizing the event. 

The pair’s lawyer have said they will appeal the punishment. 

How do the Covid rules work in Norway and what happens if you break them 

In Norway, Covid-19 measures are applied at both the national and local levels. All municipalities in the country must adhere to the national rules and recommendations that have been implemented. Additionally, they can also introduce and enforce their own rules that apply for the municipality, such as curfews, face masks, and alcohol bans.

Both local and national rules are legally enforceable. If someone breaks the Covid rules, it is up to the local prosecution authorities of that area to decide how to deal with them.

READ MORE: What happens if you get caught breaking the Covid-19 rules in Norway? 

The most likely outcome of breaking the rules in Norway is that you will either receive a fine or a warning. 

What happens if I refuse to pay? 

For whatever reason, if you refuse to pay the fine then the case will go to a district court, and you can be prosecuted for a violation of the Communicable Diseases Act. 

Several scenarios could play out in court after you refuse to pay the fine. 

First of all, the court could decide to drop or reduce the fine if they deemed the punishment too harsh or if the rules at the time were unclear. 

The district court could also choose to raise the fine too; this is the most common punishment for people who refuse to pay the initial penalty. 

Finally, the size of the fine could be upheld, and you could be ordered to pay it. 

After the court’s decision, you can decide whether you will lodge an appeal or accept the punishment. 

If you continue to refuse to pay, then you will be sent to prison instead. There isn’t a fixed prison sentence, but the higher prosecuting authority recommends 15 days. 

If you decide to accept the fine at any point, the money will be collected by the Norwegian Central Collection Agency, which manages penalties on behalf of the police in Norway. 

The fine can be paid in instalments, upfront or deducted from your salary. You can also defer scheduled payments if you wish to. 

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COVID-19 RULES

End of the pandemic? What the expiry of Sweden’s Covid laws really means

With the expiry of Sweden's two temporary Covid-19 laws, the downgrading of the virus's threat classification, and the end of the last travel restrictions, April, officially at least, marks the end of the pandemic. We explain what it means.

Published: 1 April 2022 13:07 CEST
End of the pandemic? What the expiry of Sweden's Covid laws really means

What are the two laws which expire on April 1st? 

Sweden’s parliament voted last week to let the two temporary laws put in place to battle the Covid-19 pandemic expire on April 1st.

The first law is the so-called Covid-19 law, or “the law on special restrictions to limit the spread of the Covid-19 illness”, which was used during the pandemic to temporarily empower the authorities to limit the number of visitors to shops, gyms, and sports facilities. It also gave the government power to limit the number of people who could gather in public places like parks and beaches. 

The second law was the “law on temporary restrictions at serving places”. This gave the authorities, among other things, the power to limit opening times, and force bars and restaurants to only serve seated customers.  

What impact will their expiry have? 

The immediate impact on life in Sweden will be close to zero, as the restrictions imposed on the back of these two laws were lifted months ago. But it does means that if the government does end up wanting to bring back these infection control measures, it will have to pass new versions of the laws before doing so. 

How is the classification of Covid-19 changing? 

The government decided at the start of February that it would stop classifying Covid-19 both as a “critical threat to society” and “a disease that’s dangerous to the public” on April 1st.

These classifications empowered the government under the infectious diseases law that existed in Sweden before the pandemic to impose health checks on inbound passengers, place people in quarantine, and ban people from entering certain areas, among other measures. 

What impact will this change have? 

Now Covid-19 is no longer classified as “a disease that’s dangerous to the public”, or an allmänfarlig sjukdom, people who suspect they have caught the virus, are no longer expected to visit a doctor or get tested, and they cannot be ordered to get tested by a court on the recommendation of an infectious diseases doctor. People with the virus can also no longer be required to aid with contact tracing or to go into quarantine. 

Now Covid-19 is no longer classified as “a critical threat to society”, or samhällsfarlig, the government can no longer order health checks at border posts, quarantine, or ban people from certain areas. 

The end of Sweden’s last remaining Covid-19 travel restrictions

Sweden’s last remaining travel restriction, the entry ban for non-EU arrivals, expired on March 31st.  This means that from April 1st, Sweden’s travel rules return to how they were before the Covid-19 pandemic began. 

No one will be required to show a vaccination or test certificate to enter the country, and no one will be barred from entering the country because their home country or departure country is not deemed to have a sufficiently good vaccination program or infection control measures. 

Does that mean the pandemic is over? 

Not as such. Infection rates are actually rising across Europe on the back of yet another version of the omicron variant. 

“There is still a pandemic going on and we all need to make sure that we live with it in a balanced way,” the Public Health Agency’s director-general, Karin Tegmark Wisell, told SVT. 

Her colleague Sara Byfors told TT that this included following the “fundamental recommendation to stay home if you are sick, so you don’t spread Covid-19 or any other diseases”. 

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