At its 1507th DH meeting in September 2024, the Committee of Ministers ended its supervision of the execution of the European Court’s judgments Savran and Abdi. The cases concern expulsion orders combined with long-term or permanent re-entry bans following criminal convictions. Both applicants were “settled migrants” who arrived in Denmark at a young age.
In response to these judgments, amendments were made to the Danish Aliens Act which entered into force on 23 June 2022. Firstly, the amendments clarify in section 50a of the Danish Aliens Act that the domestic courts, when undertaking a subsequent review of an expulsion order, must make a full examination of whether the enforcement of the expulsion would be in breach of Article 8 of the Convention. Secondly, the domestic courts, in similar proceedings pursuant to sections 50, 50a and 50b of the Aliens Act, must be able to reduce the period of the imposed re-entry ban. Similar amendments to the Aliens Act were already adopted in May 2018 (subsequent to the facts of the cases) which gave the domestic courts the discretion to set, in criminal trials, periods of re-entry bans for expulsion decisions in line with the Convention requirements. Following the amendments, the authorities provided examples of domestic case law showing how practice is now aligned with Convention requirements.
