Judicial review in Denmark
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
.svg)
Judicial review is the procedure by which courts in Denmark assess whether laws are compatible with the Constitution of Denmark, and administrative acts are compatible with the law. The Constitution does not expressly authorise the courts to review statutes, but the courts have established this right by precedence.[1] Constitutionality is usually decided in the Supreme Court, but can be decided at lower levels of the judiciary.[citation needed]
As the Constitution does not mention whether the courts can overturn legislative acts as unconstitutional, it has been debated in Danish legal theory whether the courts are able to do this. However the courts have assumed this right which has been accepted by the government as well as Parliament.[1]
There has been little debate whether the courts were able to examine whether the formal constitutional procedures connected to the creation of a law has been followed. The courts have done this in a few cases, but have never ruled a law unconstitutional due to non-compliance with formal procedure.[citation needed]
In 1912 the Supreme Court assumed that it had the power to try the constitutionality of tithe abolition laws. In 1921 the Supreme Court came close to declare a land reform law unconstitutional; and it was only because a judge changed his vote that the law was considered constitutional.[citation needed]
In 1971, the Supreme Court was close to declare a law unconstitutional. The law demanded that a foundation under the University of Copenhagen was to transfer its collection of Icelandic manuscripts and its capital to the University of Iceland, along with the foundation's capital.[1] The foundation contested that this was violating the constitutional ban on expropriation without compensation. The Supreme Court ruled that the foundation was to transfer the manuscripts without compensation, but not its capital.[2]
In a 1980 case concerning whether a law can ban private shipping companies from transporting goods to and from Greenland was heard. In reality there was only one company affected by the law, and the Eastern High Court ruled that the law expropriated the business of that shipping company and awarded the company a compensation.[citation needed]
The only case where a law was ruled unconstitutional is from 1999, where several named individual schools from the Tvind network was cut off from government funding.[3] The law was passed because the schools were suspected of receiving funding based on forged numbers of students. To avoid a lot of lawsuits, a law was passed cutting the Tvind schools from government funding and barring them from suing the government over the lost funding.[citation needed] The Supreme Court declared this to be a violation of the separation of powers and declared the law unconstitutional.[3]