As a recent graduate, she was denied authorization. Now she is receiving compensation from the state
Brussels (Khrono): – The state has thrown away the cards for both authorization and liability.
That is what lawyer Tone Galaasen in the Dental Association tells Khrono. Galaasen has, with lawyer Per Andreas Bjørgan as legal assistant, representative and dentist who in recent years has struggled to get authorization in Norway after studying in Denmark.
Now the point is set.
Shortly before the case goes to the Supreme Court later this month, there is an in-depth settlement in the case. Earlier this year, the Norwegian Directorate of Health turned around and gave the person in question authorization. With the settlement, she also receives compensation from the state.
According to the lawyer, the settlement means that “the state pays compensation that covers the essentials of our clients’ financial losses, future losses and legal costs”.
Affects Norwegian authorization practice
The case has consequences for more than one dentist who sued the state, it has Norwegian authorization practice and has already contributed to the Norwegian Directorate of Health changing the practice for, among others, dentists trained outside Norway.
It has been over five years since, when I could get compensation, traveled home to Norway after studying in Denmark. With her was a Danish authorization. Now she applied for a license to work as a dentist in Norway. The response from the Norwegian Directorate of Health was a downturn.
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Prior to this, Norwegian students have traveled to Aarhus and Copenhagen to study dentistry for several decades. They have done so with support from the Norwegian state, which has paid for seven study places reserved for Norwegian students.
When they have returned home, they have received a license, and later authorization, from Norwegian information. In the spring of 2016, the first rejections came. Practice was changed, without notice.
Controversy over Danish certificate
One of those who was rejected was the dentist who now receives compensation. She complains about the refusal, but does not enjoy it. With the support of the Dental Association, she agreed to use the state. She lost in the district court, but appealed to the Court of Appeal. There she was completely upheld. The Court of Appeal also ruled that she was entitled to compensation for lost earnings.
Now the state appealed, the case was sent to the Supreme Court.
The dispute has not been about the quality of the Danish dental education, which is as extensive as the Norwegian. When the Norwegian Directorate of Health changed practice, the background was a scheme in Denmark where required and a separate certificate for so-called right to self-employment, which you can get after one year of practice under another dentist with such a certificate.
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The certificate is not mandatory. Without this, you get authorization and can work as a dentist, but you can not start your own clinic.
In Norway, there is no such requirement. So why can I not authorize when the five-year education is the Norwegian? The state has argued that you will not have completed the Danish education without this and that you are therefore not entitled to authorization.
Send questions to the EFTA Court
This was the crux of the case when the EFTA Court looked at the case after I had been sent a bunch of questions from the Supreme Court. In one of the questions, the Luxembourg court was asked to answer whether the so-called Professional Qualifications Directive is to be understood, that the host state must be able to require both the actual qualification certificate from the training and any certificates required in the country you have trained.
EFTA Court wrote in his reply an applicant must be «in possession of all certificates accompanying the certificate of qualification (…) in line with the requirements of the home Member State for the profession in question» in order to «benefit from the automatic approval».
This part was a victory for the state.
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Men The EFTA Court did not stop there. At the same time, they quickly struck at the EEA Agreement must be “interpreted as meaning that the host State has a duty to make an individual assessment of the knowledge and education as documents of an applicant’s professional qualifications” and that “the fact that an applicant does not have full access to the profession in home state, may not be decisive for assessments of whether applications can be admitted to the same year in the host state ».
The Norwegian Directorate of Health changed practice
In response to this, the Norwegian Directorate of Health announced in July that they had changed their practice. They refer to the statements of the EFTA Court in both the dental case and the controversy surrounding the Norwegian psychologists trained at the ELTE University in Budapest. They point out that the Court of Justice is quick to consider that professional qualifications must be assessed in accordance with Articles 28 and 31 of the EEA Agreements, when the so-called Professional Qualifications Directive does not give the right to approval.
When the state makes so many mistakes over such a long period of time, it obviously has major consequences.
Tone Galaasen
“People with a health education from an EEA country can apply for authorization even if they do not have the full right to practice the profession in the country of education and even if they do not have the right to professional approval under the EU Professional Qualifications Directive,” the directorate said in a statement. . July.
At the same time, they make it clear that the change will have «the greatest practice significance for search with medical and dental education». I would like to say that these are not a psychological education that is being harmonized and government lawyer Torje Sunde quickly told Khrono in July that the change would not have any significance in the ELTE case.
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– Nice that the state has finally taken responsibility
In June, just as before the Norwegian Directorate of Health announced a new practice, there was also a bold new decision in cases with the dentist who had sued the state. She now received authorization.
Norwegian information was rectified immediately following the declaration of the EFTA Court.
Kaija Bjelland
-In the case before the Supreme Court, the state has acknowledged procedural errors (incorrect fact), incorrect legal opinion and incorrect application of law, including breaches of Articles 28 and 31 of the EEA Agreement. When the state makes so many errors over such a long time, it obviously has major consequences. However, it is good that the state finally has responsibility, changed practice for all similar cases, and pays compensation to the dentist who has completely accidentally ended up in this situation, Galaasen writes to Khrono and adds that the result is in line with the ruling from the Court of Appeal.
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– Absurd that they can discredit an education they self-finance
At the same time, she believes that the result would have been the same regardless of the EEA agreements and the Professional Qualifications Directive.
-Equivalent professional education from abroad has given the right to authorization as a dentist in Norway since the challenge before the EEA agreement entered into force. Instead of acknowledging mistakes and taking the consequences of them, the state has several times in the last five years changed factually and legally justified, most recently that they must have “full right to practice in the country of education”. Even in the EFTA Court, the state argued contrary to unequivocal factual information from Denmark about their own education, and portrayed our client as a dental student with an interrupted education. This is just one of several things that make this case serious, she believes.
– Norway’s practice was correct
Despite the fact that the practice has changed and a settlement has now been introduced, the state maintains that the judgment in the Court of Appeal was incorrect.
– The main issue in the case was whether persons without rights to practice the profession fully in the country of education could obtain an authorization or license in Norway. This spring, the EFTA Court issued two important clarifications: The first was that Norway’s practice under the Professional Qualifications Directive was correct. This meant that we were not entitled to authorization under the Professional Qualifications Directive, and the Court of Appeal ruling was therefore incorrect, writes Kaija Bjelland, who is the state’s legal counsel, and I commented to Khrono.
The second clarification “was that persons without the right to pursue the profession fully in the country of education still have the right to obtain their qualifications under EEA agreements for the most part”, she adds.
-Norwegian authorities complied immediately with the EFTA Court’s statement. A concrete assessment of the dentist was made in our case and she cannot get authorization. The case before the Supreme Court has now been settled by agreement between the parties, Bjelland writes.