The case concerned a person who moved to Sweden from Germany with her family and applied for parental benefit at sickness benefit level. The Swedish Social Insurance Agency assessed that she was not entitled to the benefit because she was insured in Germany and thus not covered by Swedish social insurance. The Administrative Court rejected her appeal, but the appellate court, Kammarrätten, granted her parental benefit in an amount corresponding to the difference between Swedish and German benefits, citing a 2014 Supreme Administrative Court precedent.
Försäkringskassan appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court, which overturned Kammarrätten's judgment and upheld the Administrative Court's decision. The court noted that under EU Regulation 883/2004, the woman was covered by German legislation since she was employed there, even though she resided in Sweden. It distinguished the 2014 case, which involved child allowance—a residence-based benefit—where both parent and child were resident in Sweden, triggering a different provision of the Social Insurance Code.
The court concluded that the relevant section of the code was not applicable and the precedent was not relevant, so the woman was not entitled to the benefit. In Norway, child welfare reforms are emphasizing reunification after several European Court of Human Rights rulings found violations. Under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, care orders should be temporary with the aim of reuniting the child with their parents, and interventions must be necessary and proportionate.
The Supreme Court has required adjustments in Norwegian child welfare practice to comply with the ECHR and Norwegian law, particularly emphasizing that the child welfare service must actively work to facilitate reunification. This follows multiple Strasbourg rulings that Norway violated human rights, including by giving up the goal of reunification too quickly. A Norwegian municipality has won a court battle to relocate three disabled residents from their shared housing to a care center, despite protests from relatives.
The residents of Furuholtet in Nordre Land were sued by their own municipality, which wants to move them to Landmo care center to save money and terminated their lease. The residents cannot speak for themselves, so their closest relatives speak for them. The court ruled the termination valid, finding it objectively justified, not unreasonable, and not in violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The ruling stated that the new offer is equivalent and that moving will have few negative consequences if carried out gently, and that the municipality's need for control to ensure good solutions for all service recipients must outweigh the residents' wishes to remain. Anna Ekrem, leader of the local association for persons with developmental disabilities, expressed disappointment and said the ruling does not sufficiently consider that the housing offer should be equally good. She also said too little weight has been placed on this being the residents' home, warning of a return to pre-1990s institutional thinking.
The relatives will meet soon to consider an appeal. Mayor Ola Tore Dokken previously described the case as very difficult but one of many demanding cases facing municipalities, and now declines to comment. The women affected by a baby switch at a maternity ward in Herøy over 60 years ago have been denied a hearing by the Supreme Court.
They have lost twice in court and appealed, but the appeals committee unanimously found insufficient grounds for the case to be heard, exempting them from paying the state's costs of 55,000 kroner. Karen Rafteseth Dokken, 80, is one of the women who took home the wrong baby. Her lawyer Jenny Sandvig said she takes it hard because she is again denied an apology and redress for being deprived of her daughter at birth and the cover-up.
John Christian Elden, representing the other woman, said it is sad the Supreme Court would not review the case and that they will consider appealing to the European Court of Human Rights. The Court of Appeal had acknowledged the switch had significant and lifelong consequences but concluded the state is not responsible. The baby switch is one of very few similar cases in Europe, and the women want compensation for human rights violations, lost childhood, and family life.
It was discovered in the 1980s, but health director Torbjørn Mork concluded it was best to move on, and several families were secretly mapped. Rafteseth Dokken learned four years ago that the girl she brought home in 1965 was not hers and has spent all her savings on lawsuits. NRK has not yet received a comment from the Attorney General.
The Supreme Court has ruled that foreigners with residence permits in Norway may still be entitled to asylum. In a ruling on 27 March 2026, the court found that the Immigration Appeals Board had misinterpreted the law when rejecting the asylum application of an Eritrean woman and her child. The woman already had a residence permit through family reunification but later sought asylum citing risk of persecution; the immigration authorities rejected without assessing her situation.
The Supreme Court concluded that risk of persecution must always be assessed, regardless of other permits. Three victims of the extensive welfare scandal from 2019 have taken their case to the European Court of Human Rights. The case has been registered, meaning initial requirements are met, according to lawyer Håvard Sanne-Halvorsen.
It has not yet been served on Norway and will first be considered by a single judge who can dismiss it. In a separate child welfare case, the Supreme Court ruled that a municipality in Møre og Romsdal did not do enough to ensure a baby could return to its biological parents and must pay 100,000 kroner to the father. The parents had fought for years to establish that the municipality intervened unlawfully when their baby was placed with foster parents.
The municipality believed the parents were unfit to care for a baby, while the parents believed they could manage despite inexperience. NRK has anonymized the father out of consideration for those involved. The Herøy baby switch occurred in 1965 when a Norwegian woman gave birth to a baby girl in a private hospital and returned home with a baby seven days later.
The baby raised by Karen Rafteseth Dokken, named Mona, was not her biological daughter due to a switch at birth involving two baby girls born on February 14 and 15, 1965. The women, along with Rafteseth Dokken, are suing the state and municipality, arguing human rights violations for covering up the error. Norwegian authorities discovered the error when the girls were teenagers but covered it up.
Mona did a DNA test in 2021 that showed she was not the biological daughter of those who raised her. The woman raising the other baby, Linda Karin Risvik Gotaas, knew since a 1981 blood test that the child was not biologically related. Norwegian health authorities were informed of the mix-up in 1985 but did not tell the others involved.
Mona's biological father has died and she has no contact with her biological mother. There were several cases of accidental baby swaps at Eggesboenes hospital during the 1950s and 1960s. 3 million crowns in damages to families of two baby girls switched at birth.
The switch came to light ten months after birth when a father requested a DNA test without his partner's knowledge, revealing the child was not biologically related to either parent. The hospital initially offered 300,000 crowns each, which the families rejected. The court awarded different amounts based on psychological assessments: the man who ordered the test got the least, his partner 700,000, the other couple more, and the children 300,000 and 150,000 crowns.
Psychologists say traumas may emerge later in life for the children.