Højesteret (Supreme Court of Denmark)
Jens Peter Christensen, dr. jur.
President of the Supreme Court
President since: 1 November 2022
Member of the Supreme Court since: 2006
Biography and career
Born in 1956 in Skive, Denmark.
Education
High school graduate 1975
Cand. phil. (first degree) 1980
Master of Science in Political Science (Cand. scient. pol.) 1982
Ph.D. (Lic. jur.) 1990
Master of Laws (Cand. jur.) 1992
Dr. jur. 1997
Career
Legal officer at the Municipality of Copenhagen 1983-84
Lecturer at Department of Political Science and Government, University of Aarhus 1984-85
Head of section at the Ministry of Education 1985-88
Research fellow at Department of Law, University of Aarhus 1988-90, senior lecturer on public law 1990-98
Professor of public law 1998-2011
Temporary judge at the Western High Court/Court of Appeal 1999-2000
Teaching assistant in economics at University of Aarhus 1979-82, at the University of Copenhagen 1983-87 and at Copenhagen Business School 1986-92, in business law at Copenhagen Business School 1992-94, and constitutional law at the University of Copenhagen 1987-97.
Other positions and assignments
External examiner in constitutional law at the Universities of Aarhus and Copenhagen 1997-2017
Member of the executive committee of the Nordic Administrative Federation from 1999
Co-editor of the literary section of the Danish legal journal “Ugeskrift for Retsvæsen” 2003-2017
Member of the Committee on Courts of Inquiry 1994-96 (Report 1315/1996)
Member of the Danish Research Council for the Social Sciences 1995-98
Member of the Parliamentary Constitution Committee 1996-99
Member of the Committee on relations between ministers and government officials 1997-98 (Report 1354/1998)
Appointed by the Ministry of Finance to make the report ”Offentligt Ansatte Chefers Ansvar” (publ. 1998)
Member of the Committee on police and defence intelligence services 1998-2012 (Report 1529/2012)
Member of the Election Board 1999-2012
Chairman of the group of experts on supervision of local administration 2002 (Report 1425/2002)
Chairman of the Committee on the right to vote when living abroad 2003 (Report 1432/2003)
Chairman of the Committee on advice and assistance to government officials (Spin Doctor Committee) 2003 (Report 1443/2004)
Member of The Appeals Permission Board 2004-06
Chairman of the Committee on the freedom of expression and the right of civil servants to disclose information 2004 (Report 1472/2006)
Chairman of the board of the Danish Court Administration 2011-2018
Chairman of the Election Board from 2012
Chairman of the Committee on special advisers (spin doctors) 2012 (Report 1437/2013)
Chairman of § 66 Committee (legislative committee to follow up on the Farum Commission's recommendations) 2012 (Report 1538/2013)
Chairman of the Committee on the freedom of expression of civil servants and whistleblower schemes 2014 (Report 1553/2015)
Chairman of the Committee on Tribunals of Parliamentary Inquiry 2016 (Report 1566/2017 and Report 1571/2018)
Member of the board of the University of Aarhus from February 2017
Chairman of various committees regarding the doctorate in law and the appointment of law professors.
Author of
Den højere Uddannelse som Politisk Problem (1982)
Forfatningsretten og Det Levende Liv (Ph.D. dissertation 1990)
Ministeransvar (doctoral dissertation 1997)
Offentligt Ansatte Chefers Ansvar (1998)
Domstolene – den tredje statsmagt (2003)
"Højesteret og statsmagten" in the book Højesteret – 350 år (2011)
Dansk Statsret 1. ed. (with Jørgen Albæk Jensen and Michael Hansen Jensen) (2012)
Grundloven - atten fortællinger (2013)
Grundloven med kommentarer (with Jørgen Albæk Jensen and Michael Jensen) (2015)
"The Supreme Court in Today's Society" in the book The Supreme Court of Denmark (2015)
"Højesteret i dagens samfund" in the book Højesteret (2015)
Dansk Statsret, 3. ed. (with Jørgen Albæk Jensen and Michael Hansen Jensen) (2020)
Awards
Gads Fonds Juristpris 1991
Filtenborgprisen 2003
The festschrift "Festskrift til Jens Peter Christensen" (DJØF Publishing, 2016, 895 pages) was published on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday on 1 November 2016