Expulsion for attempted murder

Case no. 56/2017
Judgment delivered on 7 June 2017

The Prosecution Service
vs.
T

The High Court had sentenced T to eight years in prison for, among other things, three cases of attempted murder and possession of firearms in particularly aggravating circumstances. The issue before the Supreme Court only concerned expulsion.

The conditions in the Danish Aliens Act were fulfilled, and T thus faced expulsion unless it would be in contravention of Denmark's international obligations. The question was then whether expulsion would be contrary to Article 14 of Decision no. 1/80 of the Association Council of 19 September 1980 on the development of the Association between the EEC and Turkey and Article 8 of the European Human Rights Convention. This was to be decided based on, among other things, a proportionality assessment according to the criteria laid down by the European Court of Human Rights in expulsion cases.

T was a now 28-year-old Turkish citizen. He was born and raised in Denmark and had lived here his entire life. This meant that there had to be compelling reasons for expelling T.

T's parents and brother lived in Denmark, and he had attended primary and lower secondary school here, but had no other education. He had had different jobs in Denmark, but was not working at the time of his arrest. T was married to a Turkish woman and had two children with her. Both the woman and the children lived in Turkey. He spoke and wrote Turkish and had regularly been there on vacation.

Based on an overall assessment, the Supreme Court held that T could be expelled without violating Denmark's international obligations. The fact that no claim for expulsion or suspended expulsion of T had previously been made did not lead to a different result. T was thus expelled from Denmark with a permanent entry ban.

The High Court had reached the same conclusion.