Denmark: Tamilgate: update
01 July 1994
In September 1987 the Danish Ministry of Justice and the Danish immigration authorities put a stop on "immigration for family reunification" for Tamils as a result of a so-called "peace agreement" between India and Sri Lanka. This meant that 3,000 Tamils who had been in Denmark for less than two years could be returned to Sri Lanka as the political situation was alleged to be stable and safe. The policy was not carried through after new information on the deteriorating situation in Sri Lanka became available. The decision not to proceed however did not lead to the re-establishment of the family reunification process for Tamils. The "Tamil-stop" continued for 16 months after the plan to repatriate them was cancelled causing serious hardship, rape, suicide, attempted suicide and nervous breakdowns among those waiting to be reunited in Denmark and Sri Lanka. The "stop" was illegal as the Tamils had the legal right under Udlaendingelovens para 9 (Aliens Act) to remain in the country and be reunited with their families.
The first inquiry was carried out by the Ombudsman whose report was issued in March 1989. Discussion of the reports' highly critical findings were stopped by an "arranged" inquiry in parliament. A High Court inquiry lead by High Court judge Mogens Hornslet issued a 6,000 page report in January 1993 on the Tamilgate case. The inquiry had interviewed all the relevant Ministers, members of parliament and officials involved from the summer of 1987 onwards. It found that the practice was neither defensible nor legal and that Parliament had received misleading and incorrect information from the then Minister of Justice, Erik Ninn-Hansen, as well as from several officials in the Ministry and the Directorate of Immigration. The inquiry said that officials faced with a conflict between obedience and loyalty to ministers and higher officials and a duty to act according to the law should have disobeyed. The day after the release of the Hornslet report the Prime Minister, Mr Schluter, resigned and the government (dominated by the conservatives) was replaced by a four-party government with a Social Democrat Prime Minister. In June 1993 a majority in the parliament voted to impeach the former Justice Minister for violating the Law for Ministerial Responsibility by failing to allow family reunification under the Aliens Act. This is the first case of impeachment in 83 years. The impeachment started in March 1994 with the prosecutors trying to prove that Justice Minister Ninn-Hansen verbally ordered his officials in the autumn of 1987 to stop the family reunification of Tamils. It has already emerged that Ninn-Harsen was warned several times by officials but he insisted on "deprioritising" the Tamil cases - the cover for the illegal stops.
The first sentence in the Tamilgate case was handed down in June when Grethe Fenger Moller MP and former chair of the Commission for Legal Matters in the parliament and her secretary, J Rytter Jensen, were sentenced to 60 days in prison (suspended) for giving untruthful evidence in the high Court about her involvement in the so-called "telefax case" that caused a deliberate delay in the Ombudsman's inquiry. The examination of witnesses continues with and sentences expected in the autumn.
Information; Summary of the Tamil case.