Oscar Christian Gundersen

Oscar Christian Gundersen
Oscar Christian Gundersen
	Gundersen in ca. 1940
Minister of Justice
	In office; 25 September 1963 – 12 October 1965
Prime Minister	Einar Gerhardsen
Preceded by	Petter Mørch Koren
Succeeded by	Elisabeth S. Selmer
	In office; 5 November 1945 – 20 December 1952
Prime Minister	Einar Gerhardsen ; Oscar Torp
Preceded by	Johan Cappelen
Succeeded by	Kai Birger Knudsen
Minister of Trade and Shipping
	In office; 13 January 1962 – 28 August 1963
Prime Minister	Einar Gerhardsen
Preceded by	Arne Skaug
Succeeded by	Kåre Willoch
Norwegian Ambassador to the Soviet Union
	In office; 30 August 1958 – 2 September 1961
Prime Minister	Einar Gerhardsen
Preceded by	Erik Braadland
Succeeded by	Frithjof Jacobsen
Personal details
Born	17 March 1908; Kristiania, Norway
Died	21 February 1991 (aged 82); Oslo, Norway
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Ragna Lorentzen (m. 1937)
Occupation	Politician, lawyer, judge and diplomat

Oscar Christian Gundersen (17 March 1908 – 21 February 1991) was a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party.

During his student days he was a member of Mot Dag.^[1] Gundersen graduated with the cand.jur. degree in 1931. During Gerhardsen's Second Cabinet he was appointed Minister of Justice and the Police, a post he held a year into the new Torp's Cabinet. He left in 1952 and became a Supreme Court Justice the next year. In 1958 he left that position to become Norwegian ambassador to the Soviet Union, a post he held until 1961.^[2]

He was then appointed Minister of Trade and Shipping from 1962 to 1963 during the third cabinet Gerhardsen. In August 1963 the cabinet Lyng assumed office, but a fourth cabinet Gerhardsen returned to power a month later. Gundersen was now Minister of Justice and the Police again, a post he held until the fourth cabinet Gerhardsen fell in 1965. He worked as a Supreme Court Justice for the second time, from 1967 to 1977.

From 1970 to 1973 he chaired the committee that delivered the Norwegian Official Report 18/1974, about State Secretaries. The work led to a new §14 and an altered §62 in the Constitution of Norway, leading to State Secretaries being eligible for general election and establishing the role as political. Propositions about granting access for State Secretaries to parliamentary debates without the ability to vote, to which Gundersen agreed, failed.

Honours

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, 1962^[3]

References

^ Bull, Trygve (1987). Mot Dag og Erling Falk (in Norwegian) (4th ed.). Oslo: Cappelen. p. 212.
^ "Oscar Christian Gundersen" (in Norwegian). Storting.
^ Galloway, Peter (2000). The Order of St Michael and St George. Third Millennium Publishing. p. 383. ISBN 0-9536969-5-2.

Political offices
Preceded by Johan Cappelen	Norwegian Minister of Justice and the Police 1945–1952	Succeeded by Kai Knudsen
Preceded by Arne Skaug	Norwegian Minister of Trade and Shipping 1962–1963	Succeeded by Kåre Willoch
Preceded by Petter Mørch Koren	Norwegian Minister of Justice and the Police 1963–1965	Succeeded by Elisabeth Schweigaard Selmer
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Erik Braadland	Norwegian ambassador to the Soviet Union 1958–1961	Succeeded by Frithjof Jacobsen