Michael de Laine

By Michael de Laine, Copenhagen, 11 November 2008

The Danish authorities have not been good enough at telling citizens about possibilities for reuniting their families following EU court rulings, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Civil and Military Administration in Denmark (the ombudsman) said today.

After various authorities have commented on his initial report, Hans Gammeltoft-Hansen, the ombudsman, said, “The question has quite simply been whether the authorities have informed and counselled Danish citizens well enough about their possibilities for reuniting their families after rulings by the EU courts. My preliminary finding is that that they have not been good enough.”

Information on the websites of the Danish Immigration Service, the authority dealing with aliens, was insufficient, the ombudsman’s report states.

“The website has therefore in certain points been misleading. That’s in breach of good administrative practice and is thus very regrettable,” Gammeltoft-Hansen said. He also said that there were errors in the actual counselling given to some people who had asked the authorities for information.

The Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs has noted the ombudsman’s points of criticism but has comments to some of the criticism. Both the ministry and the Danish Immigration Service are working to redress the situation, the ombudsman noted.

Whether the authorities’ practice has been in accordance with the ruling of the EU courts in all points is something the ombudsman will decide when dealing with individual concrete cases.

“It would require disproportionately large resources if I should also investigate whether the authorities’ practice since 2002 has been in agreement with EU court rulings in all points,” Gammeltoft-Hansen said. But he noted that the authorities historically have had a restrictive understanding of EU court rulings.

The ombudsman’s investigation started in July 2008 after press reports that the immigration service was not counselling applications from mixed couples, where a Dane and his/her foreign-born spouse applied for residents’ permits for reunited families in accordance with recent EU court rulings, which take precedence over Danish court rulings in the same area.