Party considerations caused delay of arming

Armed police armingArmed police.Photo: Vegard Wivestad Grøtt / NTB scanpix

Party considerations caused delay of arming

Consideration to the Liberals view on the matter is supposedly a major reason why the police in Oslo had to wait a long time for the application for temporary arming themselves to be granted, according to VG.

 

The Newspaper  on Tuesday wrote that nine months passed from police chief in the Oslo Police District, Hans Sverre Sjøvold, requested three months of so-called patrol armament before he received a permit from the Minister of Justice, Tor Mikkel Wara (Progress Party), on June 14th this year.

The case landed on the table of Per-Willy Amundsen (Progress Party) in November last year. Amundsen was still Minister of Justice then. The then Government parties, the Conservatives (Høyre) and Progress Party (Frp), waited for a clarification from the Liberals (Venstre), whether they would enter into Government or remaining in opposition.

Afraid to offend the Liberals

A centrally-placed source states According to VG that a number of issues remained unresolved in the Government, in order not to offend the Liberals as they assessed the alternatives. The case of arming of the police was supposedly one of these, due to the Liberals strong opposition towards general armament.

During the Government talks on Jeløy, the party prevented general armament, but had to accept permanent armament at certain places, such as at Oslo Airport Gardermoen.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg (Conservatives) says that the handling of the application has not been based on the Liberals joining the Government coalition.

– As Wara told the Parliament, we have issued a temporary permit, and we have also stated that we will return with a better justification in legal terms in the autumn when we have finished working with changes to the legislation. This has therefore taken a while, says Solberg.

 

© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today