Mr Joakim Øren (Lab.) (b. 1974) was appointed State Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Public Security Ms Astri Aas-Hansen on February 7, 2025. Prior to his appointment as State Secretary, Mr Øren was most recently a Head of Department at the Parliamentary Ombud’s Office from 2019. From 2016 to 2019 he was Deputy Director General in the Department of the Police at the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. 
 
Mr Øren has also been the Municipal Executive at Ulvik Municipality and a Justice and Home Affairs Counsellor at the Mission of Norway to the EU, in addition to having served as a deputy judge. Moreover, he has been an associate lawyer, Committee Secretary for the Standing Committee on Justice in the Storting, a police prosecutor at the National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime, and a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
 
The State Secretary holds a law degree from the University of Oslo and King’s College London.