Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.12.2004, Síða 41

Born in 1889 in Fljótsdalur as the son of a
farmer and growing up in Vopnafjörður in
the East, Gunnar Gunnarsson seem destined
for life on the farm. But Gunnar had other
plans. In his teens he published two volumes
of poetry and in 1907, at the age of 18, he
decided to move to Copenhagen to become a
writer.
There he fell on lean times for half a
decade, but in 1912, his first novel, The
History of the Borg Family, became a
Scandinavian best seller. Although he wrote
in Danish and was a passionate believer in
Pan-Scandinavianism, the unification of the
Nordic Countries into a single state, all his
novels are set in Iceland. Most of his works
celebrated the common man, but he also drew
on history. His novel Jón Arason was about
the execution of the last Catholic bishop. The
novel Öxin og jörðin by Ólafur Gunnarsson
on the same theme was a best seller in the last
Christmas season. His novels were translated
into Icelandic by Halldór Laxness, and
Gunnar continued to enjoy success abroad,
reaching its height in the interwar years. For
a while he was the biggest selling author in
Germany after Goethe, his books were taught
in Danish classes in Denmark, and a film of
the book about the Borg Family was the first
film to be made in Iceland.
Walt Disney even called him up asking to
make a cartoon of his book Advent. Gunnar,
never a big fan of motion pictures, hung up
when Walt said he was not used to paying
authors commission.
Gunnar moved back to Iceland with his
Danish wife Franzisca in 1938. He bought
land at Skriðuklaustur, where he intended
to build a manor house in the continental
manner. German architect Fritz Höger
designed the house, but any similarity to
Hitler´s Eagles Nest at Berchtesgaden is said
to be purely coincidental. The couple moved
in in 1939, but the rising prices that came
with the Second
World War, as well as Franzisca´s illnesses
which necessitated the proximity of a doctor,
led to the couple abadoning the house in
1948 and presenting it as a gift to the state.
The couple moved to Reykjavík where they
lived until Gunnar´s death in 1975. He spent
some of his later years translating his own
works into Icelandic, but many still prefer the
Laxness versions.
Whether his comparative obscurity next
to Laxness is because of his rather verbose
and slowpaced style not aging as well, or just
because Icelanders cannot truly consider
someone who wrote in Danish as one of their
own is open to conjecture. But his mansion at
Skriðuklaustur remains, at least, a testament
to his material success.
Politicians all around the world
are usually very skilled in making
headlines by announcing statements
that do no create formal rights or
procedures in practice. Strangely
enough, this old trick seems to work
because the notions of access to
justice, formal procedures, exercising
rights, etc. are usually ignored by the
ordinary people, simply because they
are not needed in day-to-day life.
Research made in the ‘70s by
the father of the world “access-
to-justice” movement, Mauro
CAPELLETTI, proved that the
first obstacle in this fight for justice
for all citizens in the world was
precisely this ignorance. The normal
citizen usually lives in a state of
happy ignorance of how to exercise
his/her rights until problems arise.
And by the time they appear, it can
be too late. His research, which
occupied at least 7 volumes of legal
papers and contributions from all
around the world, showed that our
legal systems created most obstacles
for the defense of a particular kind
of claims (small claims) and for a
precise kind of persons (isolated
individuals). We citizens were called
“one-shot players” in contrast to the
“repeat-player litigants”, that is to
say, administrations, multinationals,
and all kinds of companies who
enjoyed much more procedural
advantages due to the frequency of
close encounters with the system and
the amount of money and resources
they dedicated to the defense of their
rights.
Know your rights
The European integration process
could have even aggravated this
problem without realizing it. It is
a fact that European Union (EU)
and European Economic Area
(EEA) legal orders have created
thousand of new rights for Icelandic
and European citizens. Rights that
we should know about and that we
should claim before administrations
if necessary.
For instance, we now have free
movement of goods, services, capital
and persons throughout a vast area
that includes 25 countries plus the
three EEA territories including
Iceland. The European Union
tells us that we should go and work
abroad, study in another country,
buy an imported car and spend
our holidays in the sun. But when
problems arise we are all powerless
because we do not know how to
enforce the new rights we have. It
is therefore extremely important
for all of us to be aware that, finally,
there are some mechanisms and
procedures designed at a European
level to help us exercise the new
rights that have been given to us.
One of the most important
mechanisms at European level is
the complaint procedure before the
EFTA Surveillance Authority. In
fact, complaints can be presented
before this institution for violation
of European rules by any EEA
governments, including Iceland.
This is one of the possibilities
already in place to exercise our new
rights.
Anyone may lodge a complaint with
the EFTA Surveillance Authority
against an EFTA State arising from
any measure (law, regulation or
administrative action) or practice
attributable to an EFTA State,
which the complainant considers
incompatible with a provision or a
principle of EEA law.
How to sue your government
To be admissible, a complaint must
simply relate to an infringement
of EEA law by an EFTA State.
The procedure that follows is
rather simple and it is usually
finished within one year. If the
Authority considers that the
national provisions or actions raised
in the complaint may constitute
an infringement of EEA law, it
addresses a letter of formal notice
to the EFTA State concerned,
requesting it to submit its
observations by a specified date.
In the light of the reply or absence
of a reply from the EFTA State
concerned to the letter of formal
notice, the Authority may decide to
address a reasoned opinion to that
State, clearly and definitively setting
out the reasons why it considers
there to be an infringement of EEA
law and calling on the EFTA State
to comply with its obligations in
EEA law within a specified time
period (normally two months).
If the EFTA State fails to comply
with the reasoned opinion, the
Authority may decide to bring
the case before the EFTA Court.
Normally, the Court will rule on a
case, brought by the Authority, also
within a year.
Thanks to this procedure, all
Icelandic nationals and residents in
Iceland can have a proper access to
justice at European level. Thanks
to a simple mechanism such as the
complaint, it is therefore possible
to claim for the benefits and
rights derived from the European
integration process if an State does
not happen to respect them.
Elvira Mendez Pinedo is a lawyer
and doctor in European Law.
Following a marriage to an Icelandic
citizen, she moved to Iceland in
2001
GUNNAR GUNNARSSON
The Forgotten Star of Icelandic Literature
by Valur Gunnarsson
Any discussion on Icelandic literature
in the first half of the 20th Century will
invariably throw up two names, Halldór
Laxness and Þórbergur Þórðarson.
Laxness needs no further introduction nor
yet another mention of the fact that he
won the Nobel Prize in 1956. Þórbergur
Þórðarson, the enfant terrible of the 30s,
has never completely gotten out of Laxness
shadow, the Dali to Laxness´ Picasso, the
Stones to Laxness´ Beatles, but remains
widely read and respected. But at the
time the biggest seller of them all, the
Cliff Richard, if you will, of Icelandic
literature, was Gunnar Gunnarsson.
How to Enforce Your New European Rights
Access to justice should be one of the most fundamental rights of all. As every lawyer knows, if
you create a right but do not establish a procedure to make that right effective in practice as well as a
sanction for those who violate it, the right becomes an empty political declaration and nothing happens
at all.
by Elvira Mendez Pinedo
MISCELLANEOUS 41