Stay requirement for daily allowances not in conflict with EEA law

A recipient of daily unemployment allowances had periodically stayed in Sweden despite the requirement of stay in Norway in section 4-2 of the National Insurance Act, and without notifying NAV. During these stays, he had received a significant amount in daily allowances. He was sentenced by the Court of Appeal to suspended imprisonment of 60 days for violation of section 271, cf. section 270 subsection 1 (2) of the Penal Code 1902. The Supreme Court unanimously found, as the Court of Appeal, that stay requirement in section 4-2 of the National Insurance Act is compatible with EEA law. Great emphasis was placed on advisory opinion from the EFTA Court, including the conclusion that the member states are free to lay down a stay requirement in other cases than those regulated in Articles 64 to 65a of Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 on the coordination of social security systems, and that the EEA Agreement's basic rules on free movement are thus not applicable. One justice found that the stay requirement is in any case justified as a necessary and proportionate interference with the right of free movement. There was not under any circumstances a basis for excluding evidence allegedly acquired without the necessary basis in law.

Read the judgment (Norwegian only)

Area of law: Criminal law. EEA law. Section 4-2 of the National Insurance Act. 

Key paragraphs: 67-69, 74-75, 88-89, 110, 115

Justices: Normann, Bergsjø, Falch, Berglund, Steinsvik