In February 1997, the city court in Oslo convicted Kjuus of violating the criminal law §135a[4] which outlaws hateful remarks due to things like skin color.
The chief justice Carsten Smith decided that the appeal would be heard with the entire Supreme Court since the case touched upon important questions of principle.
Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn was recused from the case since he was formerly the prosecuting attorney who had charged Kjuus while Lars Oftedal Broch was absent due to illness.
In the majority opinion authored by Karenanne Gussgard, the court opined that the party program called for ethnic cleansing, and that it involved "extreme infringements of integrity".
[8] Reactions to the verdict were mixed, the majority of the Norwegian press, opposed the conviction, and editorials in Aftenposten,[9] Dagbladet[10] and Verdens Gang[11] all argued that reprehensible opinions ought to be met with arguments in open fora instead of with the criminal justice system.