DENMARK: Tamilgate: update (2)
01 January 1991
DENMARK: Tamilgate: update
artdoc August=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 M?ller 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.
Statewatch, Vol 4 no 4, July-August 1994