By Christian Cæsar Jensen
The Conservative integration spokesman, Naser Khader, was quoted in the Danish daily Information as proposing that naturalized Danish citizens who cheat the welfare system should be deprived of their citizenship.
Although, the Conservative People’s Party is part of the centre-right coalition government, their proposal has been rejected by their partners in the Liberal Party.
The Danish Institute for Human Rights is also critical. Senior DIHR Researcher, Eva Ersbøll, for instance does not believe that politicians can simply deprive people of their citizenship on these grounds because their rights are protected by United Nations conventions.
“As it stands, this proposal does not fall within what is permitted by the conventions Denmark has ratified," she told Information.
Based on the conventions, there are only two ‘serious violations’ which could lead to a Danish citizen losing his or her citizenship rights according to Eva Ersbøll. One violation would be if a person causes serious harm to Danish state interests, for example, through treason or terrorism. The second violation would be if the person has obtained his or her citizenship by fraud.
In these cases, the decision to grant the person citizenship may be revoked and the person loses his or her right to Danish citizenship, explains Eva Ersbøll. Other circumstances, such as those involving ordinary criminal activity, would not be covered by the two violations.
“It follows directly from the Conventions that ordinary crime is not sufficient [to deprive someone of citizenship], and one would have to stretch the scope of the definition very far, and it would be very odd, if you included benefit fraud as a reason,” she concluded.
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