lovsamling

Lovsamling is a formal term for a compiled collection of laws of a jurisdiction. It is intended to present statutes, regulations, and often constitutional provisions in a single, authoritative edition that serves as the primary reference for what the law requires.

The concept differs from a codified legal code in that a lovsamling may arise from the ongoing act-by-act passage of legislation rather than a single, systematically reorganized code. A lovsamling can include acts passed by the legislature, royal decrees, and other normative acts that remain legally binding, sometimes alongside transitional rules and interpretive provisions.

Creation and maintenance of a lovsamling involve official publishing processes. A government publisher or legal authority compiles the texts, and updates are issued as supplements or new editions to reflect amendments, repeals, or newly enacted laws. Many editions include annotations, cross-references, and notes on legal interpretation to aid users in applying the rules.

In practice, judges, lawyers, public administrators, and citizens rely on the lovsamling to determine the applicable law. The binding text is the current edition or its official online version, with amendments and supplements controlling over older material. This makes the lovsamling a living reference that must be kept up to date to ensure accuracy in legal proceedings.

The term is particularly common in Scandinavian and Northern European contexts, where national or regional governments publish such collections to improve accessibility and certainty of the law. While some jurisdictions move toward fully codified codes, many still maintain a traditional lovsamling as the authoritative repository of statutes and related legal rules, increasingly accessible through digital platforms.