The UN Human Rights Committee (“HRC”), acting under article 5(4) of the Optional Protocol to the CCPR determined in 2015 that Denmark had violated CCPR article 26 by failing to demonstrate that a refusal to grant exemption from the general naturalization criteria was based on reasonable and objective grounds. The reason was that the Ministry of Justice was unable to give details about the reasons for the Naturalization Committee´s refusal since the Committee’s proceedings are confidential. The lack of motivation of the decision and transparency of the procedure made it difficult for the applicant to submit further documentation in order to support his request, as he did not know the reason for the refusal. Besides, there were no accessible information about the dispensation practice of the Committee. According to the HRC, the fact that the Naturalization Committee is part of the legislature does not exempt Denmark from taking measures so that an applicant for naturalization is informed, even in brief form, of the substantive grounds of the Committee’s decision. In the absence of a justification for the decision not to accept the mental disability of the applicant as a basis for a language exception provided for in the law, Denmark had failed to demonstrate that the decision was based on reasonable and objective grounds.231 In May 2017, the Danish Supreme Court delivered a judgement on whether Denmark had violated its international law obligations by refusing naturalization. Three applicants claimed that they should have been exempted from the Danish language and naturalization test requirements since they were prevented from passing the tests due to their disabilities. They argued that by refusing their applications for dispensation (and naturalization), the Danish authorities had violated their right to equal treatment. After a concrete evaluation of the medical documentation, the Supreme Court rejected their claims as unsubstantiated. In addition, the Supreme Court found that the authorities had acted in compliance with the obligation to ensure that the refusals of nationality contained reasons in writing, as required by the European Convention on Nationality, article 11.232 In a judgment of 25 September 2017, the City Court of Copenhagen ruled that an applicant for naturalization, whose application for naturalization and dispensation from the language and naturalization test requirements due to her disability was refused, had been subjected to handicap-based discrimination in violation of Denmark’s international obligations. In the judgment, the court referred to ECHR article 14 in conjunction with article 8, the Handicap Convention article 1 in conjunction with article 2, 4, 5 18, plus the CCPR article 26. Based on the case’s concrete circumstances, the court did not find that the applicant for this reason could claim compensation.233 According to a newspaper article, the legal adviser to the Danish government (‘kammeradvokaten’) had assessed that if the Committee upheld a refusal of dispensation from the language requirement etc., the courts might find that a denial of dispensation to the disabled applicant for naturalization may be seen as a violation of Denmark’s international obligations.234 60 231 Human Rights committee communication No. 2001/2010, Advance unedited version. Distr.: General, 24 April 2015. 232 See about the judgment https://bit.ly/2CMDatn and https://bit.ly/2BCmQKV. 233 The judgment of the city court (case no. BS 28B – 2468/2016) is not published. 234 The information was confidential. However, the content has been presented in the newspapers, see among others Politiken at https://bit.ly/306IH6B. Mapping Statelessness in Denmark