The former Danish Minister of Immigration was sentenced to two months in prison after a special court ruled that she had illegally separated couples of asylum-seekers and the woman was under 18 years of age.
Inger Støjberg was sentenced to 60 days in prison on Monday for violating the European Convention on Human Rights Order the couple to separate, some of them have children.
The Danish Impeachment Tribunal said in a statement: “Inge Stojberg was convicted of knowingly violating the Ministerial Liability Act.”
The former minister pleaded not guilty in a special trial that began in September.
Although there is no suspended sentence, people who have served less than six months in prison in Denmark are eligible for electronic surveillance, which means that Støjberg is unlikely to spend any time in prison.
In 2016, in accordance with the Minister’s instructions, 23 couples (most of whom have very small age differences) separated without conducting separate inspections of their cases. When their cases were reviewed, they were placed in different centers. Her decision was deemed “illegal” because this arrangement is without exception, and the Immigration Bureau does not consider individual circumstances.
Parliament must now decide whether to disqualify Støjberg as a member of Parliament.
From 2015 to 2019, he served as Minister of Immigration and Integration in the center-right government supported by the right-wing populist anti-immigration Danish People’s Party (DF). Støjberg helped tighten Denmark’s restrictive immigration policy.
She boasted that she had passed more than 110 amendments restricting the rights of foreigners.During her tenure, she also passed a bill allowing Confiscation of refugees’ assets Fund their care in Denmark.
Her case was the third time since 1910 that a politician was submitted to a special court of 26 judges in Denmark, which was designed to try the minister’s malfeasance or negligence during his tenure.
The last case can be traced back to the “Tamil Gate Incident” in 1993, that is, in 1987 and 1988, the former Conservative Party Attorney General Erik Ninn-Hansen illegally frozen the family reunification of Tamil refugees.
Ninn-Hansen was eventually sentenced to four months of probation.
