Asbjørn Kjønstad

Asbjørn Kjønstad (6 February 1943 – 14 February 2015) was a Norwegian professor of law.

Career He was born in Frol Municipality, studied under Anders Bratholm and graduated from the University of Oslo with the cand.jur. degree in 1970. He was a research fellow from 1972 to 1978, and took the dr.juris degree in 1978. He has been a professor at the University of Oslo since 1978. He chaired the committees that wrote the Norwegian Official Reports 1977:14, 1986:11, 1990:20, 1995:29, 2000:28 and 2004:3. Later in 2009 Kjønstad ran for election (among university employees) for a place on the University of Oslo board of directors. He has previously held such a seat from 1986 to 1988 and 1999 to 2001.

Anti-smoking Kjønstad was a member of the National Council on Smoking and Health, He has been referred to as the "father of the smoking ban" in Norway. He has stated that only 5% of his total work has pertained to anti-smoking. When the committee delivered its report in January 2009, it singled out six former parliament members as suspicious cases: Gro Harlem Brundtland, Kjell Magne Bondevik, Magnus Stangeland, Anders Talleraas, Thor-Eirik Gulbrandsen and Tore Austad. In addition to the issue of pay and income, the committee found that some might have circumvented the 75-year rule by counting years where they, despite being elected as parliament members, actually served as government ministers. Government ministers in Norway may be recruited from Parliament, but while working in the executive branch he or she must leave Parliament, being replaced by a deputy (an element of the separation of powers principle). As such the years which is really spent as government minister can not count towards the specific parliamentary pension, according to Kjønstad. he chiefly blamed the pension regulatory board (composed of other members of parliament) as well as the legislators in general for creating and enforcing the law in a vague way. Already one week after the Kjønstad Committee delivered its report, the pension regulatory board announced its intent to outsource its mandate to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund.

The case was sent to the President of the Storting,