A Day After the King's Funeral, the Court Sent the Case Back to Zero: Four Years in Prison Return to Trial in Norway

Twenty-four hours after the funeral of King Harald V, Norway's Court of Appeal issued a ruling that takes the entire case back to the beginning. The appeal by Marius Borg Høiby, son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit from a previous relationship, has been accepted in full. There will not be a partial review of the proceedings. There will be a new trial, from zero, lasting four weeks.

In June this year he was sentenced to four years in prison. The case covers two counts of rape and one count of violence against a partner. These are not charges anyone calls technical. The prosecution asked for the appeal to be dismissed and the sentence to stand as it was. The court decided otherwise, and decided too that the review would not be limited to checking procedural errors but would cover a full re-examination of the facts.

"As was expected, the appeal has been accepted in full," said Petar Sekulić, Høiby's lawyer. The sentence is short, but the way it was said tells more than the ruling itself. When the defence knows the outcome in advance, the question is not whether the court works, but who has the better read on how it works.

Høiby is not currently in prison. He is under house arrest with electronic monitoring, at the Skaugum estate, the residence of the crown prince and princess. Formally, that is a measure like any other. Practically, it is a man sentenced to four years waiting out the next four weeks of trial at an address where other convicted people do not live.

He holds no title, no place in the line of succession and no official role at court. That is the defence the Norwegian crown has used since the affair began - this is a private matter of a private man, not a matter for the institution. But the private man carries his mother's family name, lives on the royal estate, and his case led every Norwegian newspaper in the year the king died.

The ruling comes a day after the funeral. It is no accident that everyone notices - the monarchy is on the front pages two days running, and only one of those days was of its own choosing. The question left hanging over Oslo is simple: how many times can a trial be repeated before it stops being justice and becomes only waiting?