Denmark has frozen a number of cases in which longstanding citizenships can be revoked if they were found to have been granted incorrectly.
Cases where an individual is deemed to have been granted Danish citizenship by mistake are being put on hold, according to a briefing to parliament by Immigration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek, reported by the Ritzau news wire.
The move follows a Supreme Court ruling last week in which the court upheld the authorities’ decision from 2017 that a man and his son were never Danish citizens, even though the father had been issued a citizenship certificate as far back as 1980.
The reversal, made 37 years later, was found to be lawful by the Supreme Court.
In the case of the man and his son, the ruling was that the decision had only “limited consequences” because the father had lived in Egypt since the beginning of the 1980s, and the son did not visit Denmark until he was 19.
However, the court also stressed that a person who has been granted Danish citizenship in good faith, held it for a long period and organised their life around it, can keep that citizenship even if authorities later discover it was awarded by mistake.
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In response to this, any ongoing cases have been put on hold while the consequences of the ruling are ascertained.
“The Ministry of Immigration and Integration is now assessing the reach of this judgement and how it should be dealt with,” the briefing stated.
The ministry noted that the Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on a similar case at the end of this month, with an outcome expected in October.
“Six ongoing cases in the courts await the outcome of the Supreme Court Ruling in October 2025,” the ministry said.