Permission to receive visits in prison and send a letter to the press ...

Case no. 3/2021
Order made on 15 October 2021

The Prosecution Service
vs.
S

S was charged with several offences, including terror-related crime and crime involving an international element and a foreign intelligence service. He was remanded in custody because there were certain grounds to assume that he would otherwise seek to abscond and avoid legal process.

During his time in custody, S asked the police for permission to receive visits from members of the press, a representative from Amnesty International’s Danish office and a human rights attorney from the US and to send a letter to the press. The police refused these requests.

The Supreme Court held that, at the time of the High Court’s decision in the case, there was no basis for setting aside the assessment on which the police had based its refusal, according to which the visits and the letter could potentially obstruct the investigation and prosecution of his crimes.

This risk could not have been sufficiently avoided by striking out certain parts of the letter or supervising the visits. The resulting restriction of S’s freedom of expression could not be regarded as infringing Section 77 of the Danish Constitutional Act or Article 10 of the Europe-an Convention on Human Rights.

The High Court had reached the same conclusion.