Expulsion decision repealed

Case no. 82/2020
Order made on 13 June 2022

The Prosecution Service
vs.
T

In its judgment of 10 March 2010, the Eastern High Court found T guilty of, among other things, two counts of attempted manslaughter. He was acquitted pursuant to Section 16(1) of the Danish Criminal Code and sentenced to placement in a secure psychiatric unit (later changed to psychiatric treatment). He was also expelled from Denmark with a permanent entry ban. The Supreme Court was asked to consider whether there were now grounds for repealing the expulsion decision under Section 50a(2) of the Danish Aliens Act.

The Supreme Court referred to the fact that T’s mental health had deteriorated significantly since the High Court’s judgment. According to the statements from psychiatric specialists in the case, he had stayed in the closed psychiatric ward since December 2021, he was psychotic with visual and auditive hallucinations, and he should continue long-term antipsychotic drug treatment. If he stopped taking antipsychotic medicine, there would be a high risk of schizophrenia relapse, and the risk of him committing serious assaults – which was already high – would increase if his treatment was discontinued. According to the statements, he would risk being subjected to “intense suffering”, including possibly becoming suicidal, in such case.

Based on the information available in the case, the Supreme Court could not disregard the specialists’ conclusion that, if his treatment was discontinued, T could risk being subjected to intense mental suffering as referred to in the European Court of Human Right’s judgment of 7 December 2021 in the case of Savran v. Denmark, paragraph 134. With regard to access to treatment in his country of origin, the only information available to the Court was that from April 2020 mentioned in the High Court’s decision, which did not cover all of the medicine used in T’s treatment according to the most recent medical information.

Referring to the information now available in the case, the Supreme Court held that the expulsion of T should be repealed under Section 50a(2) of the Aliens Act and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The High Court had reached a different conclusion.